The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Potential for 660 new seats
Breaking out of a southwest United States focus, Crested Butte Mountain Resort is pursuing an opportunity to bring in some winter airline flights from Chicago.
Preliminary talks with United Airlines have apparently borne fruit and 10 flights from the Windy City will be added to next ski season’s flight schedule. They will be scheduled for the Christmas-New Year’s holiday and spring break period.
“We were kicking around ideas at the end of May and one option we came up with was to see if we could secure some flights on peak dates with United,” explained CBMR vice president of marketing and sales Scott Clarkson. “We wanted some dates that both of us felt confident in terms of filling some seats and it was an idea the airline was willing to entertain.”
The idea is to fly a 66-passenger CR-7 direct from Chicago to Gunnison on December 21, December 28 and January 4. Then there would be a break with the flights before resuming them February 15 and ending March 29. All those dates are Saturdays.
“We are looking at a decrease in seats out of Dallas and we have Houston. This is one more gateway to get to Gunnison from a major city,” said Clarkson. “We want to emphasize that this isn’t just us doing it. We see all these flights as one big program. We’ll be discussing it at this Friday’s RTA [Rural Transportation Authority] meeting.”
Clarkson and CBMR public relations and communications manager Erica Reiter said there would be a monetary guarantee (Minimum Revenue Guarantee) to United to fly the jets into the Gunnison airport next winter. “But given the timing, we are confident that we can fill the planes to at least 75 percent,” said Reiter. “That’s 495 seats.”
Clarkson said the company has set aside some marketing and sales resources to get the word out in Chicago about the new direct flights. In fact, Reiter will be heading there soon to help spread the news.
“We see it as a way to see some growth,” said Clarkson. “It is part of the overall air program. It augments Dallas and Houston.”
The 10 new flights should be loaded into the United system by the end of June.
