In less than three months, low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines will begin flying from Denver to Phoenix, Las Vegas and Chicago, stepping up the competition against Frontier and United Airlines.
Southwest will have 13 daily flights from Denver International Airport starting Jan. 3. That includes four flights to Chicago’s Midway Airport, four to Phoenix and five to Las Vegas.
Those routes are already served by Denver-based Frontier and United’s discount operation Ted. ATA also flies to Midway and Phoenix.
United is the largest carrier at DIA with a major hub in Denver, while Frontier is second largest.
Southwest’s discounted introductory fares start at $118 round trip to Phoenix and Vegas and $158 round trip to Chicago and require 21-day advance booking. Frontier said it is matching Southwest’s fares.
“The new fare levels we’re putting in place will be lower than what anybody has seen on Frontier for quite some time,” said John Happ, Frontier’s senior vice president of marketing and planning. Round-trip sale fares previously have been about $178.
United also matched the fares this evening. “There are quite a few (flights) where it wasn’t that much of a change,” said Sean Donohue, United’s head of United Express and Ted.
The Southwest flights out of Denver will connect to 36 other cities, including Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale and Seattle.
Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said he could double the number of flights from Denver in a year and would love to make Denver a focus city.
“The market will grow, and which airline grows the most is kind of the uncertainty,” Kelly said. “The infrastructure of this airport will support our growing needs for years to come.”
DIA was designed so that concourses can be expanded if needed. In the meantime, Southwest’s two gates can handle 20 to 24 flights a day, said spokeswoman Linda Rutherford.
Southwest has a code-share agreement with ATA that allows ticketholders to fly on ATA from Denver to Phoenix and Chicago Midway. The carrier will discontinue that agreement.
ATA spokeswoman Michelle Foley said, “We’ll have to evaluate all of our options.”
Martin Catmur from Crested Butte knows Southwest from the television show Airline and said he is skeptical about flying it to Phoenix, Vegas or Chicago.
“I probably wouldn’t go to those destinations,” Catmur said while passing through DIA.
Airport co-manager Vicki Braunagel said she expects Southwest’s presence to bring an additional 1.5 million passengers to DIA in 2006 and to stimulate an additional $10 million to $15 million in revenue from things such as concessions and parking.
Because Southwest carries many business travelers drawn to low last-minute fares – capped at $299 one-way – it could help draw more businesses here, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
“We’ve been waiting for this,” said Bob Tiedemann, a Southwest pilot for nearly five years who lives in Bailey, Colo. “This is just awesome.”
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
