The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Airport setting passenger records. Locals using GUC.
by Mark Reaman
High gas and jet fuel prices don’t seem to be deterring visitors to the North Valley so far this summer. In a report to the Gunnison Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) at the June 26 board meeting, consultants for both the airline and tourism sector reported good early summer numbers.
“May was a tremendous month for the Gunnison Airport as growth in passengers was up 23% from 2025 and double that of 2024,” said RTA air consultant Bill Tomcich. “The market is absorbing the increased capacity in air seats, and we expect records for June and July.”
Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) representative Jeff Moffett said given the lean end of the ski season, TAPP focused on marketing late spring and early summer. “TAPP concentrated on the shoulder season biking and fishing opportunities, and it seems to have worked,” he said. “There are strong results for May and June with visitor numbers. The visitor forecast indicates numbers should be up for the North Valley by 11% to 20% so far this summer. The normal peak weeks in July and August however are not up significantly and look closer to flat from last year. Fall is looking up but those are small numbers at this point. TAPP is continuing the shoulder season push.”
In a report to the Crested Butte council last week, Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce executive director Heather Leonard said her organization is expecting a busy summer. “We are actively preparing for what is anticipated to be a busy summer season,” she said. “While there are a lot of unknowns, including the rising price of gas, preliminary forecast reports indicate that July is currently pacing slightly behind, but August and September are pacing similar to last year. Visitation to the Four-way Visitor Center and phone calls received so far point to more people being in town earlier and no concern on their part for a low snowfall year.”
Tomcich too told the RTA board that high fuel prices resulting in increased ticket prices isn’t slowing down travelers to GUC. “All airline prices are going up everywhere including at Gunnison,” he said. “But that doesn’t seem to be impacting demand. Fares are up about 20% on average but people are still booking.”
He said the addition of American flights into GUC from Dallas this summer has been a good addition. That flight competes with JSX flights which has trimmed back its schedule a bit to about 10 times per week during the heart of summer.
“JSX is pleased with summer but struggled to compete with American in the winter, so they only tried that for two ski seasons,” he said. “But competition is good and they are actually offering some really good fares at the moment.”
As for winter, he said United’s schedule looks identical to last season with Denver, Houston and Chicago flights, but he expects some more flights coming in from Chicago. American will be upgrading the plane it uses to service GUC resulting in a 27% increase in overall capacity.
“The flight program here is in really good shape and working well,” he concluded. “Everybody loves the new airport, the new planes and reliability.”
Locals are noticing all the improvements as well. Tomcich analyzed the amount of locals using the GUC airport and he said given the local point of origin passengers, the percentage of locals on flights originating from Gunnison is substantially up. He said prior to the Covid pandemic, locals were about 18% to 20% of the passengers. “Ever since 2022 there has been a steady increase in locals to where in 2025 they comprised 32% of the air traffic. That is significant.”
As for summer traffic, take a walk down Elk Avenue. Visitors are not letting higher gas and airline ticket prices deter them from experiencing some summer days in the nearby mountains.
