Winter flight numbers up at Eagle County Regional Airport
Vail Daily archive photo
It’s been a good winter at the Eagle County Regional Airport. Officials expect a good summer to come, with two routes added to the warm-weather portfolio.
According to Eagle County Aviation Manager David Reid, commercial enplanements at the airport in January and February were 17% ahead of the same months in 2023. It’s too soon to have the numbers from March, Reid wrote in an email. But, he added, he expects March to continue the trend from early in the year, “as we’ve been pretty busy.” The winter season winds down next week. At that point, the airport will continue daily service from Denver and Dallas, with summer service beginning in June.
Summer service this year will add flights from Chicago and Houston on United Airlines. United will also add another flight from Denver.
The EGE Air Alliance is a nonprofit group made up of local business and government representatives that works to build passenger service at the airport. Group chair Peter Dann said commercial service this winter has been a success. Dann said the summer flights from Houston and Chicago are a tribute to the work done by Reid and the airport’s consulting firm.
Dann said the new summer flights will require revenue guarantees, the first in several years.
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Airlines often demand revenue guarantees for new flights, requiring local markets to make up revenue shortfalls if not enough people fly new routes.
When voters in 2022 approved creating a regional transportation district, part of the money from that district was dedicated to revenue guarantees for future routes, with approval required from the district’s board. Those guarantees in the past had to be raised by businesses and local governments on a case-by-case basis.
Dann noted it’s been several years since an airline required a revenue guarantee.
Any new routes requiring guarantees will be looked at with long-term prospects in mind, he added.
Most of the aircraft flying into and out of the Eagle County Regional Airport are Airbus A319s or regional jets built by Bombardier and other firms. Delta Airlines is still using Boeing 757 airliners, but those planes are being retired, and the last of that model was built before Boeing started having its well-publicized problems.
While Dann praised the airport’s current partners — Delta, United and American Airlines — he added, that airport officials are still focused on attracting a low-cost carrier to the airport.
One of the problems, though, is that the aircraft some of those airlines fly don’t have the performance needed to fly out of the airport and over Red Hill on just one engine with a full load of passengers and baggage, a federal requirement.
Eagle County Manager Jeff Shroll frequently travels with other officials to airline conferences. Shroll said the county is “aggressively pursuing” other carriers and other destinations for flights.
And, he noted, the EGE Air Alliance recently revived a $100 locals’ rebate program for people flying out of the airport to the new summer markets of Chicago and Houston. “That’s been popular in the past, and it goes fast,” Shroll noted.
