The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Flights on track; Austin and others on the short list for potential new flights
By Cayla Vidmar
Winter airline flights into the Gunnison-Crested Butte airport are on track, with some growth over last year, according to the update from the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) airline consultant Kent Myers during January’s meeting. United Airlines is already booking summer flights to Gunnison from Houston and the RTA will be explore a potential new summer or winter market through the help of a federal grant.
Myers said flights to Gunnison from Denver, despite previous concerns with the schedule, are “basically even with last year as far as load factor goes.” He noted Denver is behind by about 800 passengers from last year because a larger aircraft was flown during the 2017/2018 season, and made a “substantial increase” in the number of passengers flown during that time.
The winter flight to Gunnison from Houston is ahead of last year by 10 passengers, and there will be 10 more flights than last year available on the weekends through February and March. Myers said the Dallas-Fort Worth flight is 1.5 percent ahead of last year’s load factor, but is still behind by 1,700 seats flown year-over-year. Regarding the Dallas-Fort Worth flight, Myers said, “We’re moving in the right direction.”
“I feel very good about where it is, particularly with the snow. This time last year was pretty doom-and-gloom in Colorado,” said Myers, explaining his satisfaction with winter flights so far.
Looking ahead, summer flights to Houston are available for purchase from early June until mid-August and the RTA board is discussing flight options to fund a Small Community Air Service Grant, which has funded the Houston summer flight market in the past. According to Myers, the federal funds cannot be used for the same flight markets funded in the past unless it’s during a different time of year (summer versus winter), so the RTA board is exploring new options.
“We can look at summer DFW [Dallas-Fort Worth] on American Airline, we can look at winter [flights to] Phoenix on American Airlines, we can look at ultra-low-cost carriers…” Myers said to kick off the discussion. Austin, Texas ended up being a hot topic for board members, with board member Leia Morrison asking, “We’ve been looking at Austin for how many years?”
RTA executive director Scott Truex said Austin had been the flight destination the Air Command subcommittee, a group of stakeholders that focus on airline contracts, had tentatively settled on. Myers explained, “Austin is our third-largest origination and destination market for people who come back and forth to Gunnison in the winter, as well as year-round.”
There was some concern about a flight into Austin affecting current Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth flights. Myers said, “An Austin flight will impact the Houston and Dallas flights; fares will be more competitive coming out of Austin and some passengers will cannibalize out of those two markets to a certain extent.”
Ultimately, the board decided to have the Air Command subcommittee come up with two to three destination options at their next meeting on February 11 for the RTA board to consider for the Small Community Air Service Grant application.
