Denver is on a roll. It has rebounded strongly since the start of the year. In August, passenger traffic totaled 5.9 million, the airport's statistics indicate, down by just 0.96% versus 2019. Looking ahead, the Colorado airport has 39 new gates coming to drive future growth, including international. But what's happening in November and what long-haul routes does it seek?
Capacity this November is down by just 1%
Next month, Denver has 6.35 million round trip seats for sale, according to the latest schedules information submitted to data experts OAG. That's down by just 1% from the 6.42 million in November 2019.
Of course, these figures are for domestic and international combined. Under the circumstances, it is perhaps surprising that international is down by a mere 1.7% unless carriers are yet to adjust their offering; after all, decisions have been taken much later than usual during the pandemic.
United is Denver's largest airline. It has 1% less capacity than in 2019, while various other operators have grown, such as JetBlue (+23%), Alaska Airlines (+10%), and Southwest (+8%). Some smaller operators have grown too, like Denver Air Connection (+139%). However, most others have cut back, including Frontier (-16%).
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Denver's big domestic focus has helped
Denver is very much a domestic airport, with only around 5% of its available seats deployed internationally, less than for Houston (24%), Dallas (12%), Atlanta (10%), although more than the likes of Minneapolis (3%) and Salt Lake (3%).
This relative lack of exposure to international markets has probably been a blessing. Speaking at World Routes in Milan, Laura L. Jackson, Denver's Vice President of Air Service Development, said:
"Denver has really rebounded very quickly and in the first half of the year, we were the third-busiest airport in the world. During the pandemic, we were the largest airport for Frontier, Southwest, and United, driven by domestic traffic, connectivity, and the central geographic location of Denver."
196 destinations in November
Some 196 destinations are due to be served, down by two versus 2019. These 196 include Bloomington, Burlington, and Green Bay, each with one round trip with Frontier, leftover from the summer season.
In contrast, Phoenix, Chicago O'Hare, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Houston Intercontinental, Seattle, Dallas Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Minneapolis have the most seats for sale, OAG shows.
Internationally, 20 destinations are scheduled across 10 airlines, with Cancun (naturally) having more available capacity than anywhere else across Frontier, Southwest, United, and Volaris. In Europe, Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich, and Keflavik are all served, the latter by Icelandair's B757-200ERs and both the MAX 8 and 9. The MAX was first deployed on Keflavik-Denver in October.
Amsterdam & Dublin are key long-haul targets
In the future, Jackson hopes to grow Denver's international route map further, adding to Air France that was added in the summer and will return in summer 2022. Jackson specifically mentioned Amsterdam and Dublin as key unserved opportunities and commented that:
"We wish to regain capacity lost internationally during the pandemic and also to expand. We're really looking forward to welcoming back international visitors who haven't been able to travel to the US and to see what Denver and Colorado have to offer."
Booking data shows that, in 2019, Amsterdam had around 50,000 round trip point-to-point passengers, making it Denver's largest unserved long-haul market. Dublin, meanwhile, had about 37,000 and was the second-largest unserved. Both are decent-sized even before demand grows from non-stop service and transit traffic is included.
What long-haul routes would you like to see from Denver? Let us know in the comments.