ߣÏÈÉú

It’s been a good year at the Eagle County Regional Airport.

In addition to Alaska Airlines and Frontier Airlines bringing service from new cities this year, it looks like the airport is going to set new records for passenger emplanements this year.

During a Tuesday update to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners, Eagle County Aviation Director David Reid said the airport has shattered its original goal of a 10% increase in its annual enplanements and passenger capacity this year. Instead, those numbers have increased by more than 30%.

For the summer, enplanements increased by 43% over 2023, with a 51% increase in seat capacity.

For the winter, the increases in service will more than offset the loss of a couple of cities. For instance, American Airlines has dropped service from Austin, Texas, after two winters. But, Reid said, that the airline has also dropped 18 other destinations from that market.

Support Local Journalism

Donate

Commissioner Matt Scherr said the rising enplanement numbers are important for a couple of reasons, in terms of more people visiting the county and fewer people using the roads as they come and go.

Reid said the additional seat capacity — particularly the addition of United’s summer service to Chicago and Houston, as well as the addition of a fourth daily flight to Denver — will be a factor in both community use and future negotiations of minimum revenue guarantees. Those guarantees are negotiated between communities and airlines and are based on how full planes are. If planes carry less than a negotiated number of passengers, the communities pay the airlines for lost revenues.

But those revenues will change with the addition of Alaska and Frontier. Reid noted that Eagle County last year had the highest average domestic fare in the U.S. The addition of Alaska and Frontier — both classified as “low fare” carriers — has already dropped the county airport to 19th on that list.

And more locals are using the airport. Reid said just less than 64% of locals used the airport in the first quarter of 2022. That number rose to 73.7% during the 2023 ski season.