Our community has made many significant planning decisions over the last 20 to 30 years, but none has been more significant than the decision to build Denver International Airport, our port to the world. Consider that DIA is a $16 billion enterprise, employing more than 30,000 people, and it has surpassed all predictions for passenger traffic, with more than 43 million passengers last year and more flights than ever before.
When Adams County and Denver began negotiations to put the airport on the present 54-square-mile site, plans called for DIA to handle 50 million passengers a year. This year, predictions are that airport traffic will surpass 46 million passengers.
Recent news has been bright for the airport’s future. In January, the major story was the return of Southwest Airlines, which is predicted to bring an additional 1.1 million passengers through DIA this year. The momentum of Colorado-based Frontier Airlines continued with the addition of expanded flights. Recently, United Airlines, the airport’s largest carrier, successfully emerged from its three-year bankruptcy, relieving fears about the fate of the legacy carrier and its critically important hub operations here. United has announced it will add 32 departures in the coming months, as well as new service to Toronto.
The significance to DIA of United’s recent emergence from bankruptcy is highlighted by recalling the stories written three years ago predicting the airport’s demise if United was to depart. The dismal scenario drawn then included a loss of more than 6,000 jobs and severe consequences resulting from the elimination of a legacy carrier and its hub. These dire predictions sit in sharp contrast today to the growing passenger numbers, economic impact and industry acclaim that the airport is enjoying. Even after the severe setbacks to the travel industry caused by Sept. 11, DIA has roared back as one of the nation’s busiest airports. United’s achievement, combined with the momentum of Frontier and the return of Southwest, has definitively moved us out of the shadow that had clouded DIA’s future.
It’s become clear that the airport has moved from a period of managing uncertainty to a period of managing growth. Expansion plans are currently under discussion and include revisiting the possibility of a terminal hotel, concourse and gate expansions, increased customs and immigration services; and a new garage section, on which construction will begin later this year. The airport is financially healthy with a solid “A” bond rating.
The airport is Colorado’s No. 1 economic driver, central to our efforts to compete globally for jobs, helping facilitate the expansion of existing companies and our efforts to attract new commerce to the area. Corporate executives and site selectors tell us time after time that DIA is the reason companies locate or expand here.
In addition to the direct benefits the airport provides, the airport district covers 300 square miles of the plains northeast of Denver and is fast becoming the greatest job-producing area in the region. Recent developments include the opening of the Pro Logis world headquarters, the Denver Gateway and the High Point development, a joint project of Denver and the city of Aurora. These projects, along with substantial and burgeoning commercial development in the Reunion area, along Tower Road and 104th Avenue, and Transport, the proposed major distribution center at Front Range Airport, combine to provide a wide array of development options needed for long-term sustained growth. Commercial, residential and recreational projects in Brighton and Commerce City also have bloomed as DIA and the surrounding area have developed.
The DIA Partnership reports that employment in the airport region last year was about 184,000, a figure that is expected to rise to more than 300,000 by 2015. The annual payroll in the region is about $7 billion.
The Airtrain, part of the approved FasTracks system, will provide employers and residents of the DIA area transportation to anywhere in the metro area and will spur a host of development options, including transit-oriented development around stations, when the rail corridor is completed in 2014.
In the future, the addition of more international flights and carriers at DIA is essential if our region is to grow as a global competitor. Attracting these flights is a major initiative of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. Working closely with the city, the Metro Denver EDC is focused on getting more direct flights from Asia and Europe. The popularity of current Lufthansa and British Airways flights indicate the potential for new international services. The Metro Denver EDC continues to work with Lufthansa to add additional destinations, including a route to Munich. United’s future expansion at DIA is also predicted to include more international flights.
DIA and the airport district will be one of the highlights, along with T-REX, when the Urban Land Institute brings its 6,000 members to the Denver area in October to study best practices for the future. The industry has taken notice of the airport’s achievements. Travel Savvy magazine and Business Traveler magazine named DIA the best airport in North America last year.
There is no doubt that DIA is fulfilling the highest hopes of the business community and specifically the vision of the chamber’s Airport Committee, created in 1972 to examine and recommend a plan of action to replace Stapleton.
Credit for DIA’s success belongs to the leadership of Mayor John Hickenlooper and his predecessors, Mayor Wellington Webb and Mayor Federico Peña. Thanks also must be given to Vicki Braunagel and Turner West who have co-managed the airport for the last 2 1/2 years. The airport’s success is due in large part to their talents managing the airport in uncertain times and positioning it for the future. This was no easy task. The key has been keeping costs down in order to provide competitive service to as many markets as possible.
More and more, the question we are asked by visiting journalists, site selectors and corporate executives considering relocating to the area is: How did you do it? How did the community join together with the necessary vision and will to build DIA, to approve FasTracks, to expand the Colorado Convention Center and build the new Hyatt Hotel, and to create the new wing for the Denver Art Museum?
As a community, we can take pride in the answer: our ability and willingness to work regionally and collaboratively to accomplish great things.
Joe Blake is president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
