Fewer passengers flying into the Gunnison airport this winter

Signs of struggle across the industry

Fewer passengers are flying into the Gunnison-Crested Butte Airport this winter. Local experts believe there is still time to catch up, but the trend is indicative of what’s happening across the Colorado Rockies and even the nation.

The total number of purchased inbound seats is about 12 percent behind last year, pacing close to the 11 percent reduction available seats.
“Our reduction in seats is translating to a reduction in passengers coming into the community, at least through Gunnison,” said Jeff Moffet, Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s director of Crested Butte Vacations.
CBMR and the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) met on Friday, December 9 to discuss the status of the air program.
“The good news is that December is up 4 percent in total,” Moffett continued. “At least in the short run, we seem to be holding our own in terms of being flat to slightly up, but then the reductions come in January, February and March.”
“Christmas week is soft. We don’t really know why but the lodging properties throughout the Colorado Rockies have a sense it’s recession, airfares, so forth and so on,” said Kent Meyers, airline consultant to the RTA, “I don’t think [the reason is] snow yet, but that’s getting really gray.”
As an example of that, United Airlines service from Houston to the Gunnison is tracking 4 percent behind last year, comparing December to December. Meyers thinks there’s still an opportunity to catch up but has seen rising fairs impact all of his clients. He attributed that to rising fuel costs and flight availability.
“If you take 2007 in the go-go years, there’s generally across the United States 20 percent fewer seats available,” Meyers continued.
Resort communities are not the only places feeling the impact. Meyers recently flew from Denver to Dallas; when his 10 a.m. flight was canceled, the next flight was not available until 6 p.m.
The morning of the RTA meeting, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition reported that cities like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh had faced significant flight shortages thanks to airlines moving hubs, filing for bankruptcy or merging.
The results are familiar to the Gunnison Valley: Cincinnati started a task force and hired an airline consultant, and major corporate players like Procter & Gamble started lobbying for air service. In Pittsburgh, the corporate community offered a $5 million revenue guarantee to maintain a direct flight to Paris.
Of course, it takes paying passengers to make a flight profitable. The Pittsburgh-to-Paris flight now pays for itself. In the Gunnison Valley, minimum revenue guarantees have been going up. The question is how to fill those seats.
CBMR is working with the Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association to propose an additional $200,000 of spending on 2012 marketing. And American Airlines has agreed to special promotions in January 2012, when people tend to plan spring break.
“United is a tougher sell… with reduced capacity, they’re going to hold out for the higher fares. I think that’s good for the RTA budget and the total community spend on air service, but it’s not necessarily more people coming into the community.”
“Has there been any more discussion about tying in with Montrose?” RTA board member Bill Nesbitt wanted to know. “There’s a perception out there that people could fly out of Montrose cheaper than Gunnison.”
“We do promote Montrose … but we don’t see a huge migration that way in terms of our customer traffic,” Moffett said.
Several board members shared personal stories highlighting the challenges of flying in and out of Gunnison, including Commissioner Phil Chamberland. He said it would take two days to reach family in Maine flying out of Gunnison. But they all spoke in favor of improving service out of Gunnison.
“When you start shifting toward Montrose, you start adding a couple of hours onto the trips. That’s just one more reason to go to Salt Lake,” said board member Chris Morgan.
“I just wanted to lay the fly on the water,” said Nesbitt. “I’m not suggesting that we dump our airport.”
To tackle the challenges, the RTA implemented a new air service subcommittee on Friday. The mayors from each of the three municipalities and Chamberland will meet on a regular basis with CBMR and other Gunnison Valley stakeholders.
According to RTA chair Jonathon Houck, the move grew out of discussions initiated by CBMR’s new general manager, Ethan Mueller, and vice president of marketing and sales, Scott Clarkson. Mueller initiated the discussion, seeking to improve communication between the resort and the RTA, and move the air program forward. The hope is that a committee would make it possible to get more done.
“We come together once a month… Are we missing opportunities to maximize our ability to have all the information we need and get all the heavy lifting done before getting here?” Houck asked.
No formal decisions will be made by the subcommittee; they will bring ideas to the board for formal consideration. And ideally, they will involve more community partners in the process.
“There’s gotta be more to this air program than just the resort. How does it fit into the business community? How does it fit into Western? How do we create more opportunity?” Houck asked.