Southwest Plans to Gradually Add More Flights to Denver

Even 50 daily flights out of Denver "isn't enough for a market of that size," Southwest Airlines chief executive Gary Kelly said Tuesday, but the carrier plans to grow slowly and in a "reasoned way."

A year after it started operations here, Southwest has more than 30 daily departures from Denver, making it a distant No. 3 behind United Airlines and Frontier Airlines at Denver International Airport.

Southwest has a much larger presence at other airports - more than 200 daily departures in Las Vegas, Chicago and Phoenix, and more than 150 in Baltimore, for example.

"I think that is the potential for Southwest Airlines in Denver," Kelly said. "That's a theoretical answer. We're many years away from that, probably."

At this point, he said, "We just don't know how big the market is."

Southwest expects to begin using a fifth gate at DIA in March.

"In the near term, a sixth or seventh (gate) would support a fairly significant number of flights. That would roughly double our flight capacity," Kelly said.

With an airport that has the right amount of capacity and the ability to expand, "Denver's in this sweet spot right now," he said.

The snowstorms that hit Denver last month affected Southwest's operations along with other airlines. But, Kelly said, "It's unfair to say weather is an issue in Denver, because it's an issue everywhere."

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