Welcome to the Denver Aviation Thread 2020. Please continue your discussion and to post your updates here.

Link to previous thread:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1412681

DEN 2019 Recap

New International service added this year: Grand Cayman, Frankfurt on UA, Heathrow now year round on UA
New service to 15 Domestic destinations, 20 new nonstops added to existing destinations, 3rd most connected airport in US
UA reached 500 departures for the first time ever.
So far in 2019, 7.4% growth rate pushing the airport to nearly 70 million passengers for the year

Looking into 2020

First Concourse expansion on B opens giving a look into the future of the airport.
UA and WN continue growth at the airport(Max Dependent)
WN opens hangar and maintenance facility on the North side of the airport.
New International service to Rome and Nassu+ increased Gatwick and Paris service on Norwegian
Great Hall project hopefully gets back on track
Work starts on the first phase of Pena Reconstruction including an improved Uber/Lyft lot and Jackson Gap improvements
Possible celebrations related to the 25th anniversary of the airport

Exciting things to come! United's growth is especially exciting to me personally; I hope to see lots more this year!

What exactly is included in the Pena reconstruction project? I usually scour the posted PowerPoints/pdfs but must've glossed over that. A 12-mile mostly 2-lane road (in each direction) is irritating with the amount of traffic DEN has now.

diatraveler wrote:

The Denver Business Journal (in a premium content article) this morning is reporting that DIA and United have reached an agreement that will grant United 24 of the 39 new gates along with support space being constructed as part of the gate expansion project at DIA. The contract goes to a committee of the city council next week.

It does not say which new gates will be United's but we know that 11 are being constructed on concourse B and 12 are being constructed on concourse A, which will have international capability. I wonder if a Polaris Lounge will be forth coming fro United on concourse A.

Looks like United will be expanding Denver even more than anticipated.

hard to say, i wonder if A would continue to be more driven towards UAX rather than international widebody flights. Placing a P.L. for 3 flights is a lot on a concourse that is not the main operation.

DEN1895 wrote:

Great Hall project hopefully gets back on track

Let's hope. The current construction has made a mess of everything.

diatraveler wrote:

The Denver Business Journal (in a premium content article) this morning is reporting that DIA and United have reached an agreement that will grant United 24 of the 39 new gates along with support space being constructed as part of the gate expansion project at DIA. The contract goes to a committee of the city council next week.

It does not say which new gates will be United's but we know that 11 are being constructed on concourse B and 12 are being constructed on concourse A, which will have international capability. I wonder if a Polaris Lounge will be forth coming fro United on concourse A.

Looks like United will be expanding Denver even more than anticipated.

You can see the document the article is referencing on the Denver city website. It doesn't say too much beyond that, and there's no mention of where the additional gates will be.

https://denver.legistar.com/Legislation ... s=&Search=

Sounds like a pretty good deal for UA. I wasn't expecting that many gates for them.

Wasn’t there talks about running a shuttle bus between the UAX gates on concourse A and B?

diatraveler wrote:

The Denver Business Journal (in a premium content article) this morning is reporting that DIA and United have reached an agreement that will grant United 24 of the 39 new gates along with support space being constructed as part of the gate expansion project at DIA. The contract goes to a committee of the city council next week.

It does not say which new gates will be United's but we know that 11 are being constructed on concourse B and 12 are being constructed on concourse A, which will have international capability. I wonder if a Polaris Lounge will be forth coming fro United on concourse A.

Looks like United will be expanding Denver even more than anticipated.

The Denver Business Journal recently updated the story saying that the gates will be a mix of new and existing gates. They are building 14 gates on B (4 West, 10 East) meaning they will probably get 10 gates on A. I have heard of possibilities of UA getting some of the common use International gates on the North side of A dedicated to them, if they were to take the existing + 2 of the new gates that would give them 10 gates on A. This would also leave 12 narrow body and 4 wide body parking spots for everyone else. While not a Polaris lounge, I have heard they are looking for locations to put a regular UA club on A.

How many gates is WN taking?

panam330 wrote:

Exciting things to come! United's growth is especially exciting to me personally; I hope to see lots more this year!

What exactly is included in the Pena reconstruction project? I usually scour the posted PowerPoints/pdfs but must've glossed over that. A 12-mile mostly 2-lane road (in each direction) is irritating with the amount of traffic DEN has now.

The Pena Reconstruction is part one of four to improve and expand the road, this phase focuses on the section of Pena from Jackson Gap to the Main Terminal. While there are some road expansions to Pena, it is more of a safety and ground transportation project.The Commercial Vehicle hold lot will be rebuilt and enlarged allowing Uber and Lyft to move in with cabs and buses, moving them from the Mt. Elbert Parking lot. New roads will be constructed to try and remove some rental car buses from Pena. The entire Jackson Gap interchange will be rebuilt into a diverging diamond interchange to improve traffic flow. The project will be starting in Q1 of this year and should take approximately 2 years to complete. The rest of the Pena expansions will be a fight as Denver City Council is not a big fan of road expansions currently.

A few article:
Expansion: https://denverite.com/2019/07/15/denver-city-council-approves-93-million-contract-to-widen-pena-boulevard-by-three-lanes/
Expansion hurdles: https://denverite.com/2019/07/08/denver-city-council-is-putting-off-voting-on-widening-pena-boulevard/
https://denverite.com/2019/06/20/dia-will-widen-pena-boulevard-denvers-12-mile-airport-driveway/

https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-ai ... enver-hub/

All but one of thee gates would be on A. They also are entering into a contract to refurbish and expand both United Clubs on B concourse, while adding a concourse on A concourse. It has to annoy the city somewhat to note that the concourse on A will _not_ be a Polaris lounge. It’s not clear to me why UA thinks it can get 11 existing gates - plus 12 new build gates on A. The contract for these gates would run through 2035 (or the next UA bankruptcy, whichever comes first).

Supposedly the city is not far from a agreement for 16 gates for Southwest as well, which would tie up a total of 27 out of the 39 new gates. The remaining 11 gates, I suspect, would be allocated to the carriers that UA would push out of A, presumably into the two new free gates on A, and the remainder on C.

It definitely seems like the 39 gate expansion is too small.

airfrnt wrote:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-airlines-plans-more-gates-new-clubs-at-growing-denver-hub/

All but one of thee gates would be on A. They also are entering into a contract to refurbish and expand both United Clubs on B concourse, while adding a concourse on A concourse. It has to annoy the city somewhat to note that the concourse on A will _not_ be a Polaris lounge. It’s not clear to me why UA thinks it can get 11 existing gates - plus 12 new build gates on A. The contract for these gates would run through 2035 (or the next UA bankruptcy, whichever comes first).

Supposedly the city is not far from a agreement for 16 gates for Southwest as well, which would tie up a total of 27 out of the 39 new gates. The remaining 11 gates, I suspect, would be allocated to the carriers that UA would push out of A, presumably into the two new free gates on A, and the remainder on C.

It definitely seems like the 39 gate expansion is too small.

Based on this quote from the article:
"They include 12 under construction and 11 existing gates on A, and one net additional gate on B."

I could see the 11 existing gates including the 11 ground load positions on the East side of A, these gates were only designed for construction overflow but now it seems like UA doesn't want to leave.If UA takes the 12 new gates on A that would leave only the 16 new gates on C left which Southwest wants as all of the gates on B will go to UA as well.

The 39 gate expansion was definitely too small.

DEN1895 wrote:

airfrnt wrote:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-airlines-plans-more-gates-new-clubs-at-growing-denver-hub/

All but one of thee gates would be on A. They also are entering into a contract to refurbish and expand both United Clubs on B concourse, while adding a concourse on A concourse. It has to annoy the city somewhat to note that the concourse on A will _not_ be a Polaris lounge. It’s not clear to me why UA thinks it can get 11 existing gates - plus 12 new build gates on A. The contract for these gates would run through 2035 (or the next UA bankruptcy, whichever comes first).

Supposedly the city is not far from a agreement for 16 gates for Southwest as well, which would tie up a total of 27 out of the 39 new gates. The remaining 11 gates, I suspect, would be allocated to the carriers that UA would push out of A, presumably into the two new free gates on A, and the remainder on C.

It definitely seems like the 39 gate expansion is too small.

Based on this quote from the article:
"They include 12 under construction and 11 existing gates on A, and one net additional gate on B."

I could see the 11 existing gates including the 11 ground load positions on the East side of A, these gates were only designed for construction overflow but now it seems like UA doesn't want to leave.If UA takes the 12 new gates on A that would leave only the 16 new gates on C left which Southwest wants as all of the gates on B will go to UA as well.

The 39 gate expansion was definitely too small.

They ought to build a permanent eastern extension onto A, not sure why that wasn’t included.

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/01/12/d ... way-noise/

"Aurora has given a green light to the construction of potentially hundreds of houses half a mile from Denver International Airport’s next planned runway, highlighting growing concerns over what an explosion of new neighborhoods near the airport may mean for future homeowners.

Officials from the airport recently lobbied the Aurora City Council over the next phase of High Point at DIA, a 1,152-acre mixed-use community just southwest of the airport, pleading with the city not to open the door to homes being built so close to the airfield."

smokeybandit wrote:

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/01/12/dia-aurora-development-runway-noise/

"Aurora has given a green light to the construction of potentially hundreds of houses half a mile from Denver International Airport’s next planned runway, highlighting growing concerns over what an explosion of new neighborhoods near the airport may mean for future homeowners.

Officials from the airport recently lobbied the Aurora City Council over the next phase of High Point at DIA, a 1,152-acre mixed-use community just southwest of the airport, pleading with the city not to open the door to homes being built so close to the airfield."

Is this a potential repeat of the "noise fiasco" that occurred at the old Stapleton airport? Back then the taxpayers were on the hook for paying the costs of noise remediation of hundreds, if not thousands, of homes adjacent to the old airport.

Frontier 14

Anyone who moves in there should have to sign a waiver that they'll never submit any noise complaints.

Frontier14 wrote:

smokeybandit wrote:

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/01/12/dia-aurora-development-runway-noise/

"Aurora has given a green light to the construction of potentially hundreds of houses half a mile from Denver International Airport’s next planned runway, highlighting growing concerns over what an explosion of new neighborhoods near the airport may mean for future homeowners.

Officials from the airport recently lobbied the Aurora City Council over the next phase of High Point at DIA, a 1,152-acre mixed-use community just southwest of the airport, pleading with the city not to open the door to homes being built so close to the airfield."

Is this a potential repeat of the "noise fiasco" that occurred at the old Stapleton airport? Back then the taxpayers were on the hook for paying the costs of noise remediation of hundreds, if not thousands, of homes adjacent to the old airport.

Frontier 14

I visited DIA about three days after it opened in 1995, and I remember the drive on Pena Boulevard was mile after mile of nothingness - just empty prairie as far as you could see. I went back a few years later and I couldn't believe how much development had occurred, especially along the north-south portion of Pena near the interchange with I-70 where I was really surprised to see huge housing developments. They're not directly under the flight paths, but pretty close, and if you go further south of I-70 there's been tons of homebuilding right under the approach paths.

It does seem irresponsible to zone for residential so close to the airport boundary - the whole point of DIA was to avoid the houses-against-the-perimeter-fence situation that had developed at Stapleton. Aurora is a separate community that has to plan for its own tax base, and I get that, but it would be the height of irony for noise issues to hit DIA when it was specifically planned to never have them.

jsnww81 wrote:

I visited DIA about three days after it opened in 1995, and I remember the drive on Pena Boulevard was mile after mile of nothingness - just empty prairie as far as you could see. I went back a few years later and I couldn't believe how much development had occurred, especially along the north-south portion of Pena near the interchange with I-70 where I was really surprised to see huge housing developments. They're not directly under the flight paths, but pretty close, and if you go further south of I-70 there's been tons of homebuilding right under the approach paths.

It does seem irresponsible to zone for residential so close to the airport boundary - the whole point of DIA was to avoid the houses-against-the-perimeter-fence situation that had developed at Stapleton. Aurora is a separate community that has to plan for its own tax base, and I get that, but it would be the height of irony for noise issues to hit DIA when it was specifically planned to never have them.

Aurora has no taste and will greenlight any development. I'm usually very pro-development, and I think it's maddening how little is built in California where I currently live. But Aurora has never had any kind of good city planning. That was true in the 70s when Aurora was all about developing every inch of the prairie, and it's true today. I don't think the Gaylord property by E-470 and Pena should have been built (that developer is nothing but a sham to swindle cities out of tax incentives), and the artificial downtown that Aurora's trying to build by the mall off 225 is all wrong. The RTD R Line was also nothing but political appeasement when the money probably would have been better spent building a light rail or streetcar line down Broadway or Colfax in Denver. But I digress.

With all that said, it is worth pointing out as well that the city of Denver was able to annex the land for DIA and Pena Boulevard partly under the idea that Adams County and Aurora would get all the development surrounding the freeway, so sprawling development was always bound to happen to some degree. Some of that is necessary, such as the hotels, and I've warmed up on the proposals for more business parks around the airport. But I agree that building more sprawling single-family housing so close to the airport is asking for trouble.

Interesting article in CAPA today about United expansion in the recent years, I pulled some graphics from the article, if you want to read the whole thing: https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/united-airlines-aims-to-bolster-denvers-success-with-new-gates-508145

UA's domestic departures per Hub, Jan 2020


Southwest "hubs" by departures for comparison


The article also looked at DEN's share of low cost carriers compared to other Hubs.



And a picture of the inside of B West form the airport from last week.

ericm2031 wrote:

I know UA is bigger in ORD, but does UA connect more passengers through DEN or ORD? I only ask because I'm wondering if their plan is to make DEN more of a connecting hub where they have the ability to add tons of flights, while using it's more limited opportunities at ORD for O&D.
. I just don't know
And is it still true that WN gets more O&D in DEN than UA? I vaguely remember that, but can't remember if those were excluding regionals or not.

the REAL question IS? Were United Not doing well at DIA? Why would they want to expand? I don't think United has a lot of room for Expansion at their other hubs save IAD which needs a new Terminal at which to expand and Has the room TO expand. ORD is a few years out with their terminal expansion, EWR is nearly dead full LAX is a few years out and maybe not at all. United will actually need a south eastern USA hub if they want to gain anymore ground but the question is? Where? I can safely say it won't be ATL or MIA. Maybe FLL or RSW or even MCO but that's he last region where United is sparse. Though I'm almost sure that IAH would also welcome some expansion by UA though I don't know if there's room to expand into. In any case? Not like DIA. That's an airport that has ROOM! and is virtually underutilized as a connecting hub from Asia and/or Europe and South America. I can see at least 15 cities in the west and southwest that could connect thru Denver. and evidently WN sees it too. Denver is an up and coming powerhouse and it's finally making sense to me why they closed Stapleton. I actually thought Pena was just having a "Wet Dream" but dude was a visionary. My hat is off to him.

ericm2031 wrote:

I know UA is bigger in ORD, but does UA connect more passengers through DEN or ORD? I only ask because I'm wondering if their plan is to make DEN more of a connecting hub where they have the ability to add tons of flights, while using it's more limited opportunities at ORD for O&D.

And is it still true that WN gets more O&D in DEN than UA? I vaguely remember that, but can't remember if those were excluding regionals or not.

As a percentage, WN has a higher mix of O&D traffic then UA does but DEN is supposedly very strong O&D as well. I can't find the latest numbers - but I've heard over and over that it's pretty close - a few percentage above 55-45 either way. This is offset by WN's traffic which is dominated by O&D - leading to a overall 35% connecting versus 65% O&D traffic (grown from 55 O&D -45 Connecting when the airport first opened, and never close to the 45-55 the airport was designed for). It also explains why WN wants to grow Denver to it's largest "station" - in a point to point network like WN, the benefit of a geographically centralized hub is even more pronounced.

DEN1895 wrote:

panam330 wrote:

Exciting things to come! United's growth is especially exciting to me personally; I hope to see lots more this year!

What exactly is included in the Pena reconstruction project? I usually scour the posted PowerPoints/pdfs but must've glossed over that. A 12-mile mostly 2-lane road (in each direction) is irritating with the amount of traffic DEN has now.

The Pena Reconstruction is part one of four to improve and expand the road, this phase focuses on the section of Pena from Jackson Gap to the Main Terminal. While there are some road expansions to Pena, it is more of a safety and ground transportation project.The Commercial Vehicle hold lot will be rebuilt and enlarged allowing Uber and Lyft to move in with cabs and buses, moving them from the Mt. Elbert Parking lot. New roads will be constructed to try and remove some rental car buses from Pena. The entire Jackson Gap interchange will be rebuilt into a diverging diamond interchange to improve traffic flow. The project will be starting in Q1 of this year and should take approximately 2 years to complete. The rest of the Pena expansions will be a fight as Denver City Council is not a big fan of road expansions currently.

A few article:
Expansion: https://denverite.com/2019/07/15/denver-city-council-approves-93-million-contract-to-widen-pena-boulevard-by-three-lanes/
Expansion hurdles: https://denverite.com/2019/07/08/denver-city-council-is-putting-off-voting-on-widening-pena-boulevard/
https://denverite.com/2019/06/20/dia-will-widen-pena-boulevard-denvers-12-mile-airport-driveway/

Appreciate the follow-up, thank you very much. Interesting developments.

ericm2031 wrote:

I know UA is bigger in ORD, but does UA connect more passengers through DEN or ORD? I only ask because I'm wondering if their plan is to make DEN more of a connecting hub where they have the ability to add tons of flights, while using it's more limited opportunities at ORD for O&D.

And is it still true that WN gets more O&D in DEN than UA? I vaguely remember that, but can't remember if those were excluding regionals or not.

The most recent numbers that I know of for each airline is that UA is about 40% O&D while WN is closer to 60-65%. If we applied those numbers to this years stats that would equal:

UA
O&D: 10,329,987
Connecting: 15,494,981
Growth this year: 2,467,047

WN
O&D: 10,220,606
Connecting: 5,503,403
Growth this year: 147,549

Very close and WN would probably be higher if they weren't slowed down by the Max, WN definitely has the most bags by a landslide though.

Glass going in on Concourse B West expansion. I didn't realize the entire exterior was pre-fab.

More Pictures!

A West:



C East:



Southwest Hangar:


B West:




Last 2 from DEN.

Thanks for sharing! Looks like things are moving fast.

According to Routesonline.com, NRT, FRA, and LHR will all be operated by the -9 instead of -8 this year. A quite welcome addition!

DEN1895, thanks for the construction photos of the gate expansions. These are nice to see. I was at DIA yesterday and could see a little of the A West construction from the terminal west side passenger departure/drop off ramp. Much appreciated.

Frontier 14

Nicknuzzii wrote:

According to Routesonline.com, NRT, FRA, and LHR will all be operated by the -9 instead of -8 this year. A quite welcome addition!

That is quite surprising actually. I would guess maybe just peak season.

Google Earth has just updated the images around DEN from Sept '19. It really is interesting to see all of the construction going on. You can see the 3 concourse expansions and the Southwest hanger construction.

City Approves Amendment Granting United 24 New Gates.

SW is probably very unamused.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.denver ... rport/amp/

rph99 wrote:

City Approves Amendment Granting United 24 New Gates.

SW is probably very unamused.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.denver ... rport/amp/

Clearly, the gate expansions didn’t go far enough. IMO, the rest of A and C will definitely need to be built out now.

The facade is nearly complete for the north side of B-West. The south side is about 75%.

The airport posted the traffic report for November, .6% overall for October, 6.7% year to date.During the week of Thanksgiving there was a large snowstorm that led to many canceled flights which is why the there was almost no growth this month. Increases are posted below for each major airline:

Airline ...NOV ...YTD
UA .......1.7% ....9.8%
WN .....(-5.9)% ...0.3%
F9 .......7.2% ...13.9%
DL .......3.2% ....5.6%
AA .......0.3% ...(-0.1)%
BA .......1.2% ....3.3%
LH .......0.8% ....8.7%
NK ......41.2% ...22.9%

The airport is currently on track to finish with a passenger count of 68-69 million.

-Any idea when the total passenger numbers for 2019 will be available.
- also any new potential international destination announcements.

Kden95 wrote:

-Any idea when the total passenger numbers for 2019 will be available.
- also any new potential international destination announcements.

Last year the final numbers came out mid February, so probably the next week or two. As far as international destinations, I’m curious how much more can be added as the afternoon bank is already fairly full with Norwegian increasing their flights and adding Rome.

In a recent article from the Denver Business Journal, Copa stated that they hope to go daily year round:

“We have been flying for two years, four times a week and in high season we go daily,” Heilbron said. “Hopefully, in the not-so-distant future we will go daily.”

Being code share partners with UA they should get plenty of connections in the next few years as well.

Full Article: https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2020/02/04/copa-airlines-denver-panama-flight.html

Tonight, the contract for the phase 1 of the Great Hall project went to the City Council committee, in short, the proposal passed 6 to 0 with little objection. It should go to the full city council this month and I don't think it will have any issues passing. A few things I noted from the presentation:

- If passed the new contractor would begin in March, a sub-contractor that was approved in November will begin some demolition and other work this month.
-It sounds like the first phase will not have many changes since it is so far along, the following phases will have changes.
-The level 6 bridge near American's ticket counter and North security is staying as a cost savings measure. I think this will actually be a good change as it will allow for people to go from security directly to the escalators that lead to the train. However, less people will pass by the entrance to A bridge.
-While they are asking for 195 million, they don't think that the first phase will cost that much and some of the money will go towards prep work for the future phases.
-Current estimated time of completion for phase 1, Q4 2021.
-The airport said that the phasing and final budget for the remaining project should be out by the summer.

Some things I am curious about:
- How was the original timeline for each phase only 11 months when this one phase alone will take 2 years.
-Which phase will be next after this? The phasing originally was having the security checkpoints be one of the last phases to be complete, but it sounded like they were hinting at those being completed next. This would mean that they would move the airlines into the old UA and WN ticket counters with out them being redone.

I hope they don’t over reduce the project to try and stay under the original budget, I would rather them take some more money than end up with bad end product the airport will be stuck with for 20+ years. I wish they completed this project earlier as the project is designed to raise the terminal capacity from 50 to 80 million pax per year, there is a good chance the airport will be at or above that level by the time that the project is finished, this should have started closer to 2014 or 15.

Committee info: https://denver.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4318204&GUID=48AE9463-414A-46E0-A2FE-6C9D5169DA11&Options=ID|Text|&Search=GREAT+hall
News story: https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2020/02/05/good-hall-or-great-hall-denver-city-council.html?iana=hpmvp_den_news_headline

DEN1895 wrote:

I hope they don’t over reduce the project to try and stay under the original budget, I would rather them take some more money than end up with bad end product the airport will be stuck with for 20+ years. I wish they completed this project earlier as the project is designed to raise the terminal capacity from 50 to 80 million pax per year, there is a good chance the airport will be at or above that level by the time that the project is finished, this should have started closer to 2014 or 15.

The entire project is a bad product that the airport will be stuck with for 20 years so re-scoping it shouldn't be an issue.

I don't see how this raises capacity. The choke point is the train, the terminal is not the critical path. Any TSA issues have many other ways they could have been solved.

DEN1895 wrote:

Tonight, the contract for the phase 1 of the Great Hall project went to the City Council committee, in short, the proposal passed 6 to 0 with little objection. It should go to the full city council this month and I don't think it will have any issues passing. A few things I noted from the presentation:

- If passed the new contractor would begin in March, a sub-contractor that was approved in November will begin some demolition and other work this month.
-It sounds like the first phase will not have many changes since it is so far along, the following phases will have changes.
-The level 6 bridge near American's ticket counter and North security is staying as a cost savings measure. I think this will actually be a good change as it will allow for people to go from security directly to the escalators that lead to the train. However, less people will pass by the entrance to A bridge.
-While they are asking for 195 million, they don't think that the first phase will cost that much and some of the money will go towards prep work for the future phases.
-Current estimated time of completion for phase 1, Q4 2021.
-The airport said that the phasing and final budget for the remaining project should be out by the summer.

Some things I am curious about:
- How was the original timeline for each phase only 11 months when this one phase alone will take 2 years.
-Which phase will be next after this? The phasing originally was having the security checkpoints be one of the last phases to be complete, but it sounded like they were hinting at those being completed next. This would mean that they would move the airlines into the old UA and WN ticket counters with out them being redone.

I hope they don’t over reduce the project to try and stay under the original budget, I would rather them take some more money than end up with bad end product the airport will be stuck with for 20+ years. I wish they completed this project earlier as the project is designed to raise the terminal capacity from 50 to 80 million pax per year, there is a good chance the airport will be at or above that level by the time that the project is finished, this should have started closer to 2014 or 15.

Committee info: https://denver.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4318204&GUID=48AE9463-414A-46E0-A2FE-6C9D5169DA11&Options=ID|Text|&Search=GREAT+hall
News story: https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2020/02/05/good-hall-or-great-hall-denver-city-council.html?iana=hpmvp_den_news_headline

So if I’m reading this right, the scope of the project is being reduced? How so?

BNAMealer wrote:

So if I’m reading this right, the scope of the project is being reduced? How so?

The only announced change has been keeping the existing level 6 bridge above North security. Another change that I have heard is the walkway to where A bridge security is currently was planning on being expanded, but that has either been reduced or eliminated. They said more changes will be announced this summer as they finalize the budget, but changes will have to be made, originally this was a 5 phase project with the last two phases being smaller. With the construction still in phase 1 and nearly half the budget spent (roughly 390 million of 770) there will have to be some major changes made to reduce cost.

Not to get away from the airport expansion project discussions but it looks there are a few more destinations out west that could be added to DEN this year or next that would raise their destination count. PIH, TWF, PVU, LWS, and BTM are all in talks to get DEN service. I believe most of these would be on UA/OO.

https://twitter.com/united/status/1225821637012021248

The rendering of the outdoor patio in the terminal is interesting.

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/02/07/united-airlines-expansion-dia/

In a Denver Post article about UA signing the lease to 24 more gates, it had this to say about WN.

Southwest is finalizing its bid to lease an additional 16 gates on Concourse C, officials with that confirmed Friday, a proposal that could be before city leaders before the end of the month.

Hopefully, WN gets all the gates it wants as well. It's only fair that they get priority after UA. Furthermore, from what I've read in this and other articles, it sounds like F9 hasn't even formally requested additional gates yet. So if that is the case, you snooze you loose as far as I'm concerned.

BNAMealer wrote:

Hopefully, WN gets all the gates it wants as well. It's only fair that they get priority after UA. Furthermore, from what I've read in this and other articles, it sounds like F9 hasn't even formally requested additional gates yet. So if that is the case, you snooze you loose as far as I'm concerned.

I still can't imagine that would be the case. DIA also has to sort out DL's space because they will be losing all of their gates to UA. It's not like the airport is going to approve expansions for UA and WN but then leave F9 and DL shorthanded. There must be another solution coming.

BNAMealer wrote:

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/02/07/united-airlines-expansion-dia/

In a Denver Post article about UA signing the lease to 24 more gates, it had this to say about WN.

Southwest is finalizing its bid to lease an additional 16 gates on Concourse C, officials with that confirmed Friday, a proposal that could be before city leaders before the end of the month.

Hopefully, WN gets all the gates it wants as well. It's only fair that they get priority after UA. Furthermore, from what I've read in this and other articles, it sounds like F9 hasn't even formally requested additional gates yet. So if that is the case, you snooze you loose as far as I'm concerned.

It is not really about F9 or DL expansion, UA is taking 11 gates from F9 and DL on A, 5 from F9 and 6 from DL. After UA moves out of the A East ground load facility that will give F9 the same number of gates but DL is still without a home. Without reducing the number of gates from everyone on A concourse I don't see a way that everyone currently on A can stay.

7 of us were flying LAX to EGE(Vail) a month ago.

Pilot made 3 attempts to land but said he only had 3/4 mile of visibility & needed 3 miles. So went upstairs & circled 6 times (watched this on seat back monitor) then came on & said running out of fuel, that we needed to dash to DEN for fuel. It only took 20 mins. We were allowed off at DEN, but if we left the flight our checked bags were staying on. Flew to EGE & landed before ZGE closed again. The drive on I 70 was interesting. Closed at one point then we had to follow a snow plow at 20 mph.

1st world problems