Final 12 months was Denver Worldwide Airport’s busiest on document.
Whereas airline shares have but to completely get better to pre-pandemic ranges, passengers have returned in droves — and hundreds of thousands of them are flying by means of the Colorado hub.
“We’ll finish 2023 a lot greater than our forecast at about 78 million passengers yearly,” stated Phil Washington, CEO of the Denver Worldwide Airport. “So this has been large development.”
The airport, often known as DIA to Colorado locals, opened in 1995. It was initially constructed to deal with 50 million passengers per 12 months, however now that quantity is anticipated to achieve greater than 100 million folks per 12 months by 2027, based on DIA estimates.
OAG, a world journey information supplier, stated Denver went from the twenty first busiest airport on the planet in 2019 to the sixth in 2023.
United Airways is Denver’s greatest operator with 46.7% market share, adopted by Southwest at 30.7% and Frontier Airways at 9.7%, based on DIA.
The midcontinent airport has turn out to be United’s busiest hub. It not too long ago invested practically $1 billion in Denver so as to add extra gates, flights and locations, and opened the biggest lounge in its community.
“About 60% of our prospects are connecting from different locations. Forty p.c of our prospects are native Denver, and it is a quick rising metropolis,” stated Jonna McGrath, vice chairman of Denver Airport operations for United Airways. “We need to develop earlier than 2030 to about 650 flights a day.”
CNBC obtained a behind-the-scenes have a look at United’s Denver operations and explored how the airport and the airline plan to maintain up with demand.
Watch the video to study extra.