RTA looking at air service with United only into GUC Airport

Airport bus stop not likely

Last week, the news broke that Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CMBR) is considering a partnership with Telluride Ski and Golf Company to build a Montrose air program. This week, the future of air service into the Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport appears to be less clear than ever.

At a board meeting on Friday, February 8, the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) held an executive session with CBMR to discuss contract negotiations. Nothing definite has been announced about their partnership, but the RTA is exploring a range of partnerships with United Airlines based on the premise that American Airlines—which currently provides direct service from Dallas—would no long be part of the picture.
RTA board chairman Chris Morgan said, “We have instructed [RTA airline consultant] Kent Myers to get some pricing on flights out of Denver next winter and are also exploring the possibility of year-round service. United Airlines has those proposals—we gave them a number of scenarios to price for us.”
Myers confirmed, “It has been positioned as, if there is a decrease with American Airlines—i.e., service stopping during the winter—what kind of impact would that have on service in terms of improving the frequency during winter.”
CBMR’s goals for next winter’s air program are still being developed but when Morgan asked CBMR general manager Ethan Mueller if he wanted to comment publicly on next winter’s air service, Mueller said, “Not really. I think there’s a lot of yet to be determined, so next month.”
That leaves the RTA with a lot of uncertainty at a time when incoming winter passengers continue to decline and airport manager John DeVore has resigned. Yet in spite of all that uncertainty, the board appears poised to consider a public education campaign so business owners will understand the importance of the valley’s air program and the RTA.

2012-2013 Air Service
According to RTA executive director Scott Truex, the United flight from Houston to Denver lost $222,000 in December, compared to a loss of $164,000 in December 2011.
Myers confirmed that the schedule last December was similar to 2011 but the canceled flight around the holidays caused a dip in load factors. Truex also pointed out there were fewer outbound flights this December due to the timing of the holidays—many people left in January.
The RTA had been hoping the Houston flight would perform well enough to avoid paying the full minimum revenue guarantee to the airline, as happened last year. But Myers didn’t sound optimistic. “We’re going to be close to the cap, I’ll just leave it at that,” he said.
Jeff Moffett, CBMR’s director of Crested Butte Vacations, confirmed that including American Airlines and United, inbound flights in December were down 7 percent over last year. Overall plane capacity was down about 3 percent.
The Houston flight remained flat year over year with a 64 percent load factor, but there was a significant reduction of capacity for those flights.
“In January, we were up over 400 seats largely because of American loading flights [for sale] early,” Moffett said. But he added that February and March remain a concern. The only positive note came from the Denver service in January, when load factors increased from 53 percent last year to 55 percent this year.
That will be considered favorably, Moffett suggested, when it comes to potentially adding a Denver flight next winter. But even if the RTA does succeed in adding a Denver flight, some local businesspeople want to see the RTA act more aggressively to secure year-round Denver flights.

Some say RTA’s not aggressive enough
Crested Butte attorney David Leinsdorf told the RTA board that letting United price different options for next winter’s air service was “letting the tail wag the dog. You guys are elected officials. You’re controlling taxpayer money. You need to decide what the priority is and you need to go after it.”
When Morgan started to interrupt, Leinsdorf continued, “Let me finish. I waited 45 minutes for you to talk with the ski area. What I think needs to be done is you need to look at your trends. You’re down 14 percent in enplanements in the last year, down 33 percent since the Muellers took over the ski resort, and you’re down 55 percent from the peak.
“The trend is clear and you keep doing what you’ve been doing and it’s pretty clear what’s going to happen. It’s going to keep getting worse and sooner or later we’re going to lose Denver service.”
Both Leinsdorf and local businessman Rocky Kimball reminded the board that the RTA mission statement says the organization will focus on year-round service in and out of the Gunnison/Crested Butte Airport.
Leinsdorf then suggested, “You need to send a delegation to United, and you need to say we are recalibrating our focus. We want to improve Gunnison service—here’s our pot of money. We know it’s not much but we want to establish a long-term cooperative relationship with United from Denver to Gunnison.”
It’s an idea that has surfaced at the RTA in the past, but not everyone on the board is convinced it’s the right step.
Crested Butte Mayor Aaron Huckstep said, “Until we get real numbers we don’t really know whether a trip to Chicago is required. We may get information from Kent Myers that says here are some different alternatives that are viable for the RTA to make a decision on. In that case a trip to Chicago is not needed.”
That information—as well as CBMR’s plans—should be more clear within the next few weeks. But the idea of waiting for more information did not sit well with Leinsdorf.
“You need to decide what your program is going to be and not let other people decide for you,” he said. But instead of making decisions, the RTA shifted gears to consider the idea of an airport bus stop.

Airport bus stop? Or public education campaign?
An airport bus stop doesn’t look likely anytime soon. Executive director Truex provided information that adding the stop would cost $42,800 and pinch the schedule.
“For this amount of money we could purchase tickets from Alpine Express and have them take people to the airport and not impact the current bus system and not impact this route and have everybody get better service,” Truex said.
The board also discussed previous attempts to add an additional stop near the Days Inn were deemed ineffective. Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck said, “Taking the bus all the way down there produced no real increase in ridership and it pinched the schedule pretty hard.”
That didn’t sit well with Huckstep, who said, “That’s not a good enough basis to say we’re not going to connect this and have a cohesive program.” But the idea didn’t gain much traction before the RTA adjourned its meeting and held a joint work session with its Citizen’s Advisory Council to explore the idea of creating a private sector group that could potentially raise additional revenue for the air program.
“Sometimes we seem to be going in a circle and the experience I get out of government is that government is limited and the government is only as good as the private side’s input,” Mt. Crested Butte Mayor William Buck said.
But the Citizen’s Advisory Committee seemed to think that going to the business sector for money would be rushing things. “I’d say a general education initiative is needed, because the majority of businesses don’t understand the amount of money we’re spending to fill these seats,” said local real estate agent Candace Coen.
The challenge, of course, seemed to be figuring out what the message should be—general education or asking for money when the future of air service is so unclear.
“To go to the businesses and say we need more money for a losing program? I don’t think that’s the way to do it,” said Kimball. He later added that creating a compelling and cohesive story would be a challenge. “I’m confused. I’ve been coming to all the meetings of the RTA and largely all the money has not gone to year-round service. We’re bifurcated, and we’re at a crossroads.”
After much discussion, commissioner Paula Swenson led the charge for a subcommittee to begin tackling what that public message should be—so it seems that for now, there’s more talk on deck at the RTA.