Happy Halloween. It has been a truly ghoulish month for the economy.
(photo provided courtesy of Denver International Airport)
One of the central themes of this blog is that Denver International Airport (DIA) serves as a powerful economic engine for the Denver Region and Colorado. However, as jet fuel costs have increased, airlines have scaled back their flights and the U.S. macro economy declined, it has been a tough stretch for DIA and other airports around the country.
1) Frontier entered bankruptcy and reduced its flight schedule.
2) DIA's international ambitions have been curtailed, at least temporarily, as Lufthansa has ended its daily non-stop flight between Munich and Denver and United ends its daily non-stop service between Denver and London. British Airways will continue to fly the Denver to London route and Lufthansa will provide daily non-stop service between Denver and Frankfurt.
3) DIA has put its plans to expand Concourse C on hold in anticipation of declining flights and passengers as airlines cut back their routes. Additionally, the construction of an airport hotel will likely be delayed and/or scaled back.
Despite these developments, there are still reasons to be sanguine about the airport's prospects. First, DIA has achieved record monthly air volumes in 2008 including breaking the 5 million passengers per month threshold for the first time ever in July. Southwest continues to expand its flights at and destinations served from DIA. Also, to date, the airport has not lost any major hub carriers unlike some other airports around the country. Recently DIA's bond's have been given strong ratings indicating the airport is financially well positioned to weather the current turbulence.
In the long term, as the broader U.S. economy improves, I believe DIA will continue to be a powerful economic growth driver for the region and the airport will resume its upward financial and operational trajectory.
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1 comment:
I lived here back when DIA opened, and remember how dead and empty if felt those first few years. UAL still maintained a fortress hub, and when traveling to Los Angeles every other month I would actually drive down to Colorado Springs to take advantage of Western Pacific's cheap fares.
Now fares are down, the place is packed - and us travelers have many more options than we did 10 years ago.
I lament the loss of DEN-MUC -- its a great connecting point to Europe (actually better to connect there than ORD or IAD,) but even with the downtown I'm still thankful for what we have
all the best - james...
http://www.futuregringo.com
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