Denver International Airport was designed to handle up to 50 million passengers annually, and on Tuesday the airport will hit that mark for the first time in its 14-year history, DIA officials said.
To handle a projected 24 percent growth in air traffic by 2015 — to 62 million passengers — DIA now must plan for expansion, even in uncertain times for the industry, airport manager Kim Day told Denver City Council members Wednesday.
By 2015 or 2016, DIA officials anticipate that the airport will need a seventh runway, expansion of public parking and rental-car facilities, at least 20 new gates on existing concourses and upgrades to DIA’s baggage system and automated train, Day said.
She cautioned that as the airport charts a plan for expansion and improvements, officials must maintain flexibility for reacting nimbly to developments in the volatile aviation industry.
DIA’s longer planning horizon, from 2015 to 2030, tentatively calls for significant expansion of airport facilities, including new concourses, more runways and expansion of Peña Boulevard, according to airport planning documents.
Also on Wednesday, DIA officials said the airport saw its operating income, before depreciation, decline about 13 percent for the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2007.
Higher operating expenses, including additional snow- removal costs, automated-train repair outlays and increased shuttle-bus operating costs helped account for the income decline, officials said.
Despite an overall contraction of the airline industry recently, DIA has fared better than other major U.S. airports, Day said. Airlines are flying about 1 percent fewer seats out of DIA than a year ago, compared with 10.8 percent fewer seats in Phoenix and Chicago’s O’Hare and 13.7 percent fewer at Los Angeles International Airport, she said.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
