Gunnison air service could see big pop next ski season

Summer will be busy too

[ By Mark Reaman ]

The air service into the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) is expanding and next winter could see an additional 22,000 additional seats coming into the valley. That would be about a 33-percent increase over the current overall flight schedule and result in approximately 45,000 seats next winter.

RTA air consultants Kent Myers and Bill Tomcich informed the RTA board that United is excited to provide three flights a day out of Denver next winter as well as continue the direct flights from Houston. The American flights out of Dallas would also return with increased service during the busiest times with twice daily service. During peak season United would be bringing in 226 seats per day and American would bring in 193 daily.

“From December 1 to the end of April would be a big step up with 22,000 more seats,” said Myers. “We would have a lot of seats to fill if we sign up for this.”

“A total of 45,000 seats is a big number,” noted RTA chairperson Janet Farmer.

United is bullish on Gunnison,” said Tomcich. “The quality of connections with these additional flights would be greatly improved. When it is all said and done, there could be as many as six flights a day during the peak winter times. It is a good competitive balance with good connections. We will see how the market reacts.”

Problems with United’s subcontractor?
Board member Roland Mason said he has been receiving some public feedback that the contract airline, CommutAir, serving GUC for United has had some major glitches with equipment and customer service. Many delays have been reported and the customer service engagement has been less than stellar.

“What concerns me is that if we bring in more flights under similar conditions this winter, we could potentially see more negative issues,” he said.

“We have talked to United about CommutAir performance several times,” said Myers. “United is very aware of the performance and customer service issues and they are working on it. The complaints really peaked in the last 10 days when airports got really busy. It’s not been pretty. But I’ll reassure you that it is a problem we’re working on with United.”

“One thing to keep in mind too is that with the increased schedule there is more redundancy,” added RTA executive director Scott Truex. “But I agree that if there is more service there could be more issues if things don’t change.”

“United is very aware of the problems,” emphasized Tomcich. “And they will hold CommutAir accountable to certain performance metrics. There have been some significant problems with CommutAir.”

“Our relationship with United is at a high level right now and they are trying their best to solve our issues,” said Myers. “We want better performance and better customer service. We hope it can be solved soon, certainly before this winter.”

More air seats and more tourists an issue?
Board member Liz Smith asked if there have been conversations about the idea of bringing in more seats with more tourists when there are workforce and housing issues. “Do we have the infrastructure locally to support a larger tourist economy right now with the workforce and housing issues we are facing?”

Myers said the increase in seats is primarily one of stopping “leakage” from people who fly into other airports like Montrose or Denver but come to the valley along with locals using other airports to fly out. He was not sure how many additional tourists would be coming in as a result of the increase in seats. He said this increase would give both tourist and locals little excuse (other than perhaps price) to not utilize GUC.

Truex said the question was a very valid one at the moment, but they did not have an answer. The rest of the board indicated they were all fine with the seat increase.

Expect summer busyness
As for the coming summer, Myers said the general trend nationally was that there is a lot of demand for people wanting to get to resort markets. “People are looking for nice places to go,” he said. “There is lots of demand for summer.”

He said booked seats out of Denver were looking positive and the flights out of Houston were starting to fill up for the summer. “I’m cautiously optimistic about summer,” he said.

United has showed interest about expanding their flight schedule into GUC beyond summer and have loaded flights for the weekends in September.

Tomcich said that while there is a national shortage of rental cars, it is less of a problem in Colorado and Gunnison appears prepared. “It is still not easy to get a car for less than $100 per day but Gunnison’s fleet looks good,” he said. “There are some times in July it will be tight but GUC is better than most other airports.”