{"id":15282,"date":"2025-12-09T15:28:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T22:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/robust-growth-continues-through-2025-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:46:37","slug":"robust-growth-continues-through-2025-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/robust-growth-continues-through-2025-at-durango-la-plata-county-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Robust\u2019 growth continues through 2025 at Durango-La Plata County Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango-La
Durango-La Plata County Airport has experienced \u201cpretty robust\u201d growth in major airport operations, including passenger growth, concession revenues and parking transactions over the course of 2025. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

2025 has proven to be another strong year for Durango-La Plata County Airport with record-setting passenger travel every month through November.<\/p>\n

DRO Aviation Director Tony Vicari said departing passenger growth from Jan. 1 through November is up 13%, totaling 259,517 passengers compared with 229,642 passengers in the same time frame last year.<\/p>\n

He added the airport had about 519,000 departing and arriving passengers through November this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty robust activity across the board,\u201d he said, pointing to upward trends in major airport operations.<\/p>\n

Concession revenue, parking utilization and rental car contract days are all up in addition to outgoing local passengers and inbound travelers.<\/p>\n

DRO data show:<\/p>\n

Airline seat capacity \u2013 the total number of passengers airlines could accommodate assuming every seat was filled Jan. 1 through October \u2013 rose 10% to 281,169.The airline load factor \u2013 the percentage of seats sold Jan. 1 through October \u2013 rose 3% to nearly 85% this year compared with 92% last year.From Jan. 1 through October, parking lot exit transactions totaled 58,086, a 15% increase from 50,601 transactions in 2024.From the start of the year through September, rental car contract days totaled 147,812, an 18% increase from 125,525 contract days last year.Concession revenue in the DRO terminal totaled $1.5 million through September this year, a 6% increase in revenue from last year.Air freight volume from Jan. 1 through September totaled 1.23 million pounds, a 9% increase from air freight volume in 2024.<\/div>\n

\"Durango-La
Durango-La Plata County Airport experienced another record-breaking year of travel in 2025, according to Tony Vicari, aviation director, who presented a review at the Dec. 2 City Council study session.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DRO has experienced record growth annually since 2023 after the airport was hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.<\/p>\n

Vicari said Thanksgiving is one of DRO\u2019s busiest periods of the year, more so for parking than for airline passenger traffic because more locals are traveling out of town to visit family elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Despite passenger traffic the week before Thanksgiving being up 12% compared with last year, DRO experienced a 5% reduction in maximum vehicle occupancy this Thanksgiving compared with last year. He said that is thanks to the use of surge pricing, remote shuttle parking and marketing efforts encouraging carpooling, pick up and drop off, and other alternative transportation options in the lead up to the holiday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we leave (parking) unaddressed, what essentially results is you have an overflow event where we run out of physical space to park vehicles because it\u2019s completely uncontrolled. And then you have folks arriving at the airport with nowhere to park. It becomes chaotic,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are desperate, they\u2019ve already booked flights. That is not a situation we want to put our users into. So we\u2019re really challenged with creating a situation proactively to try to manage that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Aviation
Aviation Director Tony Vicari said DRO added 150 paved spaces in the summer to expand its total parking capacity to about 1,300 spaces. (Josh Stephenson\/Special to the Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DRO avoided such an overflow event and ended up with a \u201cpretty low-stress Thanksgiving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

About 150 vehicles were parked in the airport\u2019s remote overflow lot, and the airport maintained capacity in its standard terminal overflow lot. He said DRO added 150 paved spaces in the summer to expand its total parking capacity to approximately 1,300 spaces.<\/p>\n

Phase 1B of DRO\u2019s terminal expansion project remains in progress, with renovations nearing completion on a connection between the airport\u2019s new baggage claim space and the rest of the terminal expected to open before the end of the year, he said.<\/p>\n

He said the project\u2019s next major milestone following the new connection will be the opening of a new Transportation Security Administration screening checkpoint, food and beverage concessions space and airline gate space, planned for June or July.<\/p>\n

Government shutdown stunted DRO passenger growth in November<\/div>\n

The federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 and lasted 43 days \u2013 the longest shutdown in U.S. history \u2013 resulted in 30 canceled flights in the first half of November, Vicari said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had a very real impact on us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

DRO had between 10% and 14% monthly passenger growth in the first 10 months of the year, but November saw only 7% growth, data show.<\/p>\n

The flight cancellations were mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration, which required airlines to cut down their flight schedules to avoid overloading air traffic control that was beginning to face significant staffing issues countrywide, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, once the shutdown ended, within a handful of days the FAA had removed those orders and flight restrictions were no longer required, and so we\u2019ve been running as normal for the last three weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

About 27 TSA officers at DRO worked without pay for over six weeks, he said, acknowledging the federal government personnel\u2019s commitment to continue doing their jobs and that they\u2019ve since received backpay.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government shutdown caused 30 canceled flights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,915,28,1469,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines","tag-travel-and-commuting","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15282"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19575,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15282\/revisions\/19575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15282"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}