Colorado Springs Airport Sees Surge in Passenger Numbers

Additional flights and larger aircraft on existing routes helped boost passenger numbers last month at the Colorado Springs Airport by the biggest percentage in 16 months, according to a report.

The number of passengers boarding outbound flights in October from the Springs jumped 18.2% from October 2018 to 79,903. That is the biggest year-over-year increase since passenger traffic surged 28% in June 2018, when Frontier Airlines added several new seasonal flights.

All four airlines serving Colorado Springs — American, Delta, Frontier and United — added flights or increased the size of aircraft on existing routes in recent months. Those expansions boosted the number of available seats to a 10-year high and helped end a 13-month decline in outbound passenger numbers.

The show of confidence by all four carriers is a major turnaround from a year ago, when Frontier suspended seasonal flights in late summer that it had started just weeks earlier, triggering most of the passenger declines. Greg Phillips, the city’s aviation director, said the turnaround resulted from strong performance from the remaining flights, prompting Frontier to restore much of its service and other airlines to add flights to some key routes.

“We are seeing the fruits of all of the changes the airlines have made in the past few months,” Phillips said. “We expect the monthly increases to continue in November and December, though not as large as October, and continued growth next year, based on the schedules the airlines have already published for the early months of 2020. We expect to hit 900,000 passengers next year” for the first time since 2009.

American will launch seasonal nonstop service from Colorado Springs to Phoenix on Dec. 18, after expanding its Colorado Springs to Dallas service in June. Delta added more flights to Salt Lake City, while United expanded service to Denver and Los Angeles. Frontier increased its flights to Phoenix and Las Vegas and is using larger aircraft on its Colorado Springs flights.

Passenger numbers for the first 10 months of the year are down 5.2% from a year ago to 697,737. The anticipated increases in November and December are expected to leave passenger numbers for the year virtually unchanged from 2018, Phillips said.

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