The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Solid service helping to give passengers confidence
By Mark Reaman
Air service into the Gunnison-Crested Butte airport appears to be bucking the ski industry trend for this coming winter and early reservations to GUC are up compared to this time last year.
RTA air consultant Bill Tomcich told the RTA board at its November 15 meeting that with a later than normal Thanksgiving holiday, there has been a “softening” for air service to ski resorts.
“For Gunnison, the overall winter numbers are pacing ahead of last year for all five months of the winter season,” said Tomcich. “We are doing better than the rest of the industry which is down 1.6% as of this week. But in Gunnison, we are 14% ahead of last year. GUC is bucking the trend and that’s a good thing and great to see.” December is pacing almost 60% ahead of 2023.
Tomcich said given the numbers, it is an ideal time to add the new weekly Chicago flights that are slated for seven Saturdays this coming ski season. He again said GUC is the only Colorado ski resort that doesn’t have a nonstop flight from Chicago’s O’Hare. Those flights will come in Saturday afternoon and leave Sunday morning between February 15 and March 30.
“It would be nice to get some more marketing of the Chicago flights,” Tomcich commented.
RTA board member Liz Smith said that would be worth a conversation with John Norton and Andrew Sandstrom of the Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) that does marketing for the county and RTA. Smith also asked about the perceived variability in ticket prices out of GUC. “Sometimes they are affordable and sometimes they aren’t at all,” she said.
“I’ve observed more stability in ticket pricing this year,” said Tomcich. “I am seeing more consistency with the pricing and a tighter strategy from both United and American.”
Tomcich did say American Airlines had kept prices at a high premium out of Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) and that was a bit of an anomaly. He noted that boutique air carrier JSX isn’t flying between Dallas and GUC in the winter. “Pricing seems fair right now,” he said as he added that the increase in passengers booking through Dallas is “way up.”
“Reliability of the flights and added redundancy with more flights seems to be helping right now as well,” said RTA executive director Scott Truex.
As for the fall flights that include an additional daily flight, passenger numbers have been very good and load factors have been solid with a 72% load factor in October that Tomcich described as “tremendous.” He said word from United is that the airline is pleased with the fall flights that now has two instead of just one coming in from Denver. GUC recorded 7,898 passengers in September including both United and JSX, a new record for the month.
Tomcich noted that before three flights were cancelled into GUC in November given a Front Range snowstorm, it had been seven months since the last cancellation. “That is a very good stretch,” said Tomcich.