The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
86.9% load factor overall
By Katherine Nettles
Despite early indicators that domestic travel would be down this summer, Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC) has put out a banner year for passenger counts and load factors on the air carriers serving the Gunnison Valley this summer. During the Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) board meeting last month, several reports painted a picture of a robust first season for GUC since its major $26 million remodel wrapped up this spring. A few elements of fine tuning for the airport, and for the air service, remain.
“We’re feeling great about summer,” summarized Gunnison Valley Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) airline consultant Jeff Moffett. This has been the second-best summer in recent years in terms of passenger counts, and best summer overall for load factors, he reported.
He said the very high passenger load factors in July may have been a record, and based on his data, “I couldn’t find that we beat it.”
Airplanners, LLC airline consultant Bill Tomcich confirmed that the numbers were in, and it was the highest July on record, though not the highest month of all time. Tomcich reported that among the three different destination services for GUC—Denver and Houston provided by United Airlines and Dallas provided by boutique air carrier JSX—all have been successful and bode well for potentially increased service in the future.
The sum of all carriers and service for GUC in July amounted to an overall load factor of 86.9%, which has only been exceeded by September in 2016, 2017 and 2018, which had 89% load factors. The previous record for July was 2014, with an 81% load factor.
“JSX ended up filling 92% of their seats, which is pretty extraordinary,” said Tomcich of July 2023. JSX runs several flights per week between Dallas and GUC and connects between Dallas and Austin.
The twice-daily Denver service on United Express, now being operated by SkyWest, ended up running a load factor of 88% in July, according to Tomcich. The Houston service, with two flights per week, had a 75% load factor. “I was really concerned about how those Houston flights were going to fill in because they were slow to start but they filled in quite nicely,” he said.
He commented that last year, the Houston flight schedule on Wednesdays and Saturdays was a harder sell, and this summer the inbound flights on Fridays and Saturdays and outbound flights on Saturdays and Sundays to/from Houston worked well to complement the twice-daily service to and from Denver.
Last summer, load factors on United in July were 71.6%, but RTA executive director Scott Truex noted that there were more seats to sell last year as well, with more flights which made the higher load factor harder to hit.
“August is looking a lot better, as of last Monday flights were booked to 70%,” continued Moffett. “The rest of fall, September and October are slightly ahead of where they were this time last year.”
Moffett said winter bookings are pacing up with last year as well. He said that if JSX opts to add a flight from Austin this winter, which they started to do last year before cancelling it due to low bookings and a late start, TAPP is ready to do its part in making it succeed.
“If we have that [Austin] service, we want to give it the best data analysis and digital marketing possible, and as early as possible. It bodes really well for additional capacity coming in, especially in the summer months. American Airlines is looking seriously at the Gunnison market for next summer. The timing is really good for all these pieces to come together with such strong summer performance,” Moffett said.
A few details remain to be worked out on both the operations side of GUC and the air services. Truex and Tomcich said that the winter United flight schedules are confusing, as Houston flights have already been released beginning December 14, but its recent minimum rate guarantee (MRG) contract listed its start date as December 21.
Tomcich said the United Houston service beginning on December 14 has quite a few passengers already booked.
“They have a contract to begin two flights a day the 21st,” clarified Truex. “So we just need to understand exactly what they’re planning.”
“Our preference is that they have the schedule as it looks now, so we don’t have to disrupt any passengers,” added Tomcich.
GUC airport manager Rick Lamport said that on the operations side, the solar panel covered parking is in place but not fully hooked up yet. He said there are a few malfunctions that are under warranty and they also need to secure a perimeter around the parking lot to prevent damage to the wiring.
Lamport reported that there is also someone interested in running a food service and they are now waiting on necessary equipment.
“We were hoping to get it started by mid-summer, but it will be later. It’s still on the burner,” he assured.
