GUC looks to finish winter on a high note

Lodging down slightly, air service flat and April looks strong

By Katherine Nettles

During the February 20 Gunnison Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) meeting, board members and staff shared some big numbers on airport activity and airline services, as well as promising prospects for bus service expansion in the future.

RTA executive director Scott Truex reported on behalf of Tourism and Prosperity Partnership executive director Andrew Sandstrom, who could not attend the meeting, that TAPP’s air service marketing was wrapping up in February, but TAPP will continue to push for the drive market through its advertising campaigns.

According to TAPP’s data, February and March lodging occupancies are pacing about 15-20% behind last year. “But they are hopeful that between the recent snow and their push on the drive market that they can make that up a little bit,” said Truex.

Promising flight patterns

Air consultant Bill Tomcich said December and January were relatively strong months for air service to Gunnison-Crested Butte (GUC) airport compared to lodging occupancy reports. “December ended up almost exactly even with last year,” he said, “We were down .6%, by 73 passengers, which amounts to one planeload.”

In January he said air service was down about 1.8%.

“That could be attributed to a string of cancellations that American Airlines had,” Tomcich said, because of winter storms that impacted their Dallas-Ft. Worth hub and four other hubs across their network. “American had a tough month in January,” with 83% completion. United had 99% completion in January, and Houston had a 93% completion rate. He said performances were overall good for United. Looking toward the end of winter, “February and March are essentially pacing flat,” said Tomcich. April is pacing 45% ahead; “We’ll see how those numbers hold. I think that’s predominantly local travelers flying outbound.”

United has three flights daily to and from Denver through April 5, and then they drop to two daily flights from April 6 and resume three flights on May 21. “They will maintain that schedule through October 25 this year.”

United has also expanded its planned summer service from Houston this year. They will continue weekend service from Houston that is inbound on Fridays and Saturdays and then returns on Saturday and Sunday mornings. “Instead of just running the peak weeks of late June through early August, that flight will begin June 5 through September 20, said Tomcich.

“We had a discussion at the air command this week about what a great example this is of MRGs [minimum revenue guarantees] being used effectively because we are now completely off the MRG for that particular flight,” said Tomcich. MRG payments from the RTA ensure a minimum revenue for an airline to service GUC, and if an airline’s revenue quota is met, the RTA is off the hook for any payment. “United is now offering these flights entirely at their own risk.” He said United also added one Houston flight for April 4 at their own risk, since the MRGs contracted were only guaranteeing service through late March.

United is also maintaining the Chicago flight weekend service until March 29, also with inbound flights on Fridays and Saturdays and outbound flights on Saturdays and Sundays.

Regarding MRGs, Tomcich reported that results were in for Houston and Chicago flights in December, for which the RTA board had approved MRGs. He said the Houston flight had a profit of $66,000 and Chicago had a $47,000 shortfall likely due to lower fares.

American plans to run service from Dallas this summer from June 19 through September 8. JSX also plans to run its service from Dallas, from June 11 through September 28. JSX will run up to 12 flights weekly during peak summer weeks, June 24 through August 3.

GUC airport manager Rick Lamport said that 2025 had the highest number of enplanements on record, with 72,163 enplanements. The year prior had around 59,000 and the previous record was 68,000.

Lamport said he planned a few projects for this summer including runway maintenance, which will be done at night so as not to interrupt flights, and beginning a new airport master plan. The prior master plan was in 2014. “So it’s been a while. All our projects on that master plan have been done,” he said.

Last, Lamport said CDOT has installed two new signs on Highway 50 directing travelers toward the airport.