What appeared to be Denver’s folly five years ago now looks a lot like foresight.
When this city opened the nation’s newest major airfield in February 1995, more than 18 months behind schedule and $2 billion over budget, it was the subject of ridicule and controversy.
Critics scoffed at the vaunted $232 million automated baggage system that chewed up luggage. The 24-mile distance from Denver International Airport to downtown annoyed many, as did $40-plus one-way cab fares.
Travelers from out of town couldn’t get over the fact that the airport was in the middle of the wide-open plains, with nary a hotel or restaurant in sight. Skeptics loudly complained that the new $5 billion airport wasn’t necessary, as it premiered with fewer passengers and gates than its predecessor, Stapleton International.
But while other landlocked airports across the country contemplate troublesome and enormously expensive expansions, DIA has an advantage that airport officials at O’Hare and across the U.S. envy: plenty of room to expand for the foreseeable future.
True, the airport is expensive, and has not achieved anywhere near the passenger volume that early boosters predicted. Last year, 38 million people passed through DIA, the nation’s sixth-busiest airport, well below the 50 million passengers by 2000 that planners projected in the late 1980s.
And yes, DIA has hardly made Denver an international travel center, as city and Chamber of Commerce officials had hoped. At one time, there was excited talk of numerous direct flights from Denver to Southeast Asia, Europe and Central America. But currently, there are no trips to Asia from DIA, and direct flights to Frankfurt, Germany, will get under way–in a few years.
Still, while experts in Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston, New York, and elsewhere scratch their heads, trying to figure out how to upgrade aging plants and accommodate ever-growing numbers of passengers, DIA has state-of-the-art facilities on 53 square miles of land–enough to hold both O’Hare and Dallas/Ft. Worth airports.
Where to grow isn’t an issue for Denver. Instead, how to grow appears to be DIA’s challenge.
A model airport?
In many ways, Denver is considered a model “hub” airport, drawing in passengers from more than 130 locations and speeding them to other destinations with relatively few glitches. “It is the most efficient airport in our system,” said Kurt Ebenhoch, spokesman for United Airlines, which handles nearly two out of every three passengers going through DIA, the airline’s second-largest hub after O’Hare.
The airport’s five 12,000-foot runways don’t cross each other, and are far enough apart to allow three simultaneous landings in bad weather. There is enough space between concourses to allow planes opposite each other to push off from gates simultaneously without colliding. “It’s a pilot’s airport; the best in the U.S. to fly out of, light years ahead of the old Stapleton airfield,” said Young Cage, a United pilot.
Denver had 2.5 delays per 1,000 flights in 1999, the lowest delay record of the nation’s 15 busiest airports for the third year running.
Another measure of operations, runway delays, gives a sense of how different airports function. Denver had no runway delays in 1999, compared with 1,077 for Atlanta and 545 in Chicago. As for weather delays, Denver had 1,140 last year, compared with 36,325 for Chicago.
This year, on-time performance at DIA was strong until the summer, when United Airlines’ labor troubles sent the airport’s statistics into the tank.
There have been problems. An underground train system connecting the airport’s terminal and three concourses occasionally breaks down, leaving passengers stranded. Originally, the trains didn’t run often enough and lacked enough space to handle demand. There are preliminary plans to build a pedestrian walkway between Concourse A and B, so people can walk when the trains don’t work. Estimated cost: about $60 million.
Then, there’s the infamous automated baggage system, owned by United. It only works between the terminal and Concourse B, the center of United’s operations at DIA, and even then has to be supplemented by a traditional tug-and-cart system. Write-offs associated with the automated system may run as high as $150 million, according to the airport’s most recent bond prospectus.
The airport’s three de-icing pads get congested; a fourth is needed, planners say. Noise levels have been higher than agreed upon, resulting recently in a $5.3 million judgment against the airport by neighboring Adams County. Parking lots are full to overflowing; new ones are in the works. Passengers are eager to see a hotel built at the terminal; they have to travel at least 5 miles to stay overnight. Denver has an agreement with Westin to operate a new 500-room facility, to be built at a cost of nearly $90 million.
International flights have been problematic. At Denver’s mile-high altitude, especially when the weather gets hot and the air thins near the ground, it is difficult for fully-loaded international flights to get the lift they need to take off, admitted Chuck Cannon, DIA’s spokesman. The solution: Either cut passengers and baggage (thereby losing revenue) or build up speed on a longer runway.
Airport planners have proposed a sixth, $150 million, 16,000-foot runway that would remedy this, and would provide needed extra capacity for departures when the weather gets bad. The runway was part of DIA’s original plans, but was scrapped because of cost overruns.
Expanding service to the European continent and Pacific Rim countries is a priority, according to DIA’s strategic business plan. Planners expect the airport to increase the number of passengers and flights by 25 percent over the next five years, bumping against the current capacity limit of 50 million.
Costs
By far, the most controversial issues at DIA are costs and competition.
As the newest airfield in the country, DIA is expensive. Predictably, airport officials say the amenities at DIA–everything from its striking state-of-the-art facilities to lots of bathrooms and restaurants for customers to an underground fuel system at the gates for planes–are worth the high charges. According to a just-released “Competition Report” from DIA, the airport is No. 2 in the U.S. in terms of cost per passenger for basic facilities, behind John F. Kennedy airport in New York.
Critics charge that DIA was unnecessary: The city could have expanded the old Stapleton airport into the adjacent Rocky Mountain Arsenal (a former Defense Department weapons site) with far less expense, claims Gene Amole, a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News who has written more than 200 articles about DIA. While the project made lots of money for real estate speculators, builders, investment bankers and lawyers, he said, consumers have suffered from reduced competition and higher prices.
According to American Express, the lowest available economy fares for business travelers in Denver (with no more than three days advance purchase) averaged $676 in December 1999, 39 percent higher than the national average of $487. In June, Denver’s $741 average fare topped the national average by 37.4 percent.
Although the October 2000 issue of Consumer Reports called consumer fares at DIA “competitive,” the impression among local travel agents is “Denver is on the high side,” said Linda Rawlings, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents. “We hear complaints from customers all the time.”
Several airlines have cited costs at DIA as a key reason why they do not do business there. Southwest Airlines spokesman Linda Rutherford said the carrier had decided not to set up shop in Denver, in part because of DIA’s expense. When Continental dismantled its Denver hub upon DIA’s 1995 opening, severely cutting back the number of daily flights to 12 from 286, its executives also cited the airport’s high costs.
“Denver is so expensive that it has . . . hurt competition and stifled consumer choice,” said Michael Boyd, an airline consultant and longtime critic of DIA.
DIA officials like to point to Denver-based Frontier Airlines, the No. 2 airline at DIA, as a low-cost operator that has built a successful base there. Frontier officials said the company plans to expand at DIA. By 2005, they expect to have 14 gates at the airport, up from 9 now.
Denver is one of the few markets in the country where a low-cost carrier’s hub is competing successfully with a dominant airline’s hub, noted Elise Eberwein, Frontier’s spokeswoman. “Are we tapped out in Denver? Not by a long shot,” she said.
But Frontier watches every penny, because of DIA’s costs. “Our offices at DIA would be laughed at in most hubs by carriers of our size, our space there is so minimal,” said Roger Sorensen, director of Frontier’s Denver station.
Competition
As for competition, United’s problems this summer turned up the heat on this issue. As a “fortress hub” for United, Denver is among the markets that likely will be targeted by states’ attorney generals responding to complaints about customer service, and growing concern about the service implications of airline consolidation.
Together with its regional airline partners, United Airlines had a 72.6 percent market share at the airport in 1999, more than 10 times its closest competitor, Frontier, with 6.1 percent.
United officials say the company’s dominance in Denver is no greater than other carriers’ at their major hubs, such as American’s power in Dallas/Ft. Worth or Continental’s position in Houston. Even so, United has greater market strength in Denver than it does at any other single airport in the U.S.
That fact led Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) to accuse Denver officials of pandering to United and doing little to foster competition at the airport.
McInnis’ district encompasses mostly rural areas west of the Rocky Mountains, which feel ill-served by DIA, both in terms of flights and service. In an Aug. 9 letter, McInnis chided Denver Mayor Wellington Webb for letting United become the 800-pound gorilla at DIA.
“The problem is obvious to everyone,” McInnis wrote. “Colorado is too dependent on United Airlines for needed air service. It is time to confront United Airlines. It is time to take the bull by the horns.”
Airport spokesman Cannon thinks McInnis is being unrealistic. All major airlines already operate out of DIA; if they have decided not to risk a major market share battle with United, there is nothing the city can do about that, he said.
Still, the ripple effects of United’s problems had more impact on the West than on any other region. That concerns Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.), who thinks Congress ought to hold hearings on this summer’s air traffic problems, and the factors that contributed.
“With record numbers of air travelers, an air traffic control system that is desperately out of date, and airports not built to handle the loads they face,” she said, “any problem can throw the system into chaos.”
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Read other articles in this series and the special report Gateway to Gridlock at chicagotribune.com/go/airport
