{"id":42177,"date":"2022-02-16T03:41:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T10:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/frontier-ends-twice-weekly-flights-between-las-vegas-and-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:05:46","slug":"frontier-ends-twice-weekly-flights-between-las-vegas-and-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/frontier-ends-twice-weekly-flights-between-las-vegas-and-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Frontier ends twice-weekly flights between Las Vegas and Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Frontier Airlines ground crew waves goodbye on Friday to the first Frontier flight to leave Durango-La Plata County Airport since 2015. Frontier will be offering four flights a week to Denver, with departures on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Twice weekly nonstop flights to Las Vegas will begin June 11, with departures on Mondays and Fridays. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango-La Plata County Airport has been on a bit of a winning streak ever since the pandemic sent droves of city dwellers on a so-called \u201curban flight\u201d to rural locales like Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

The airport successfully recruited airlines to expand service destinations, and in 2021, it recorded a record number of passengers.<\/p>\n

But the winning streak may be plateauing.<\/p>\n

In November, Delta Air Lines canceled twice-daily flights between Salt Lake City and Durango. And this week, the airport announced Frontier Airlines will cancel its twice-weekly nonstop flights between Las Vegas and Durango beginning March 5.<\/p>\n

DRO Aviation Director Tony Vicari said airlines must make decisions based on demand and how much they can charge for tickets. Demand wasn\u2019t robust enough to support the Las Vegas flights, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the demand for the service just wasn\u2019t sufficient to support it long term,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so that was a decision that Frontier ultimately made, which is tough. I mean, we hate to see decreases in air service, of course, in the local market, but you know, no airline is going to offer service that isn\u2019t being sufficiently supported by demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frontier Airlines began offering Monday and Friday departures to Las Vegas in June. About the same time, it began offering flights between Denver and Durango. The Las Vegas service was intended to be year-round, but the Denver service was expected to be seasonal.<\/p>\n

The Denver flights stopped in December and were expected to resume at the end of April. Instead, Frontier will bring back the Denver service earlier than expected, on March 6, with twice-weekly flights on Thursdays and Sundays, Vicari said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, of course, disappointed that Frontier service to Las Vegas will end in early March,\u201d he said in a news release. \u201cHowever, we are pleased that Frontier will continue to offer uninterrupted service to Denver, the number one origin destination market for air travelers using DRO.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frontier Airlines positions itself as a low-cost carrier, catering to passengers who are able to book trips on its twice-weekly flights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows a wider range of service options, so that\u2019s great for the community,\u201d Vicari said. \u201cHopefully, we\u2019ll continue to see strong demand on the Denver route, which will keep Frontier in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango-La Plata County Airport had 397,293 passengers trips in 2021, a record number for the airport and a little more than twice as many as in 2020, the year of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

With Delta and Frontier cutting back on flights, the airport will have less overall seat capacity in 2022 than it did in 2021, Vicari said. Meanwhile, he expects demand in 2022 to be somewhere between pre-pandemic 2019 numbers and the record-setting traffic set in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it\u2019s likely to remain strong,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019ll be very close to our pre-pandemic baselines, if not slightly above.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vicari said discussions are always taking place to recruit new airlines and convince existing airlines to expand service to new destinations. But 90% of the equation comes back to demand, he said, and that\u2019s something he can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see, of course, a lot of requests from the community to try to recruit and attract more air service,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, it\u2019s only going to be as successful as the amount that it\u2019s utilized.\u201d<\/p>\n

No additional destinations are imminent, he said.<\/p>\n

The top origin and destination locations for Durango include Denver, Dallas and Phoenix, Vicari said. DRO currently has nonstop service to all three of those cities.<\/p>\n

Houston also ranks high, but it is not currently served by a nonstop flight. After that, the top origin and destination locations include Chicago, Los Angeles and Austin, he said.<\/p>\n

The airport had service to Houston pre-pandemic, but that went away during the pandemic, Vicari said. Likewise, flights were offered to Los Angeles last summer, and the airport is in negotiations to bring those back this summer, but there are no firm commitments from the carriers.<\/p>\n

The airport can help incentivize new flights by waiving landing fees, and, in some cases, can waive terminal rents depending on the type of service and frequency of service, he said.<\/p>\n

Vicari said the overall impacts from losing the Las Vegas flight won\u2019t be hugely felt in the community. Daily service to Dallas and Denver remains strong, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a nimble market at the moment, so you\u2019re seeing some adjustments,\u201d he said. \u201cBut overall, our service remains really strong. At this point, we\u2019re not fragile in our core markets. Everything is good, and we continue to work to try to recruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The airport plans a major runway reconstruction project that will close the airport for 10 days post-Labor Day, Sept. 7-16. It also plans capital projects to maintain existing infrastructure and is incrementally expanding terminal facilities to match demand.<\/p>\n

Travelers with existing reservations for DRO-LAS service on Frontier after March 5 can rebook online<\/a> or call (801) 401-9000 for refunds or rebooking, according to a news release issued Monday by the city of Durango.<\/p>\n

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

aviation director says demand wasn\u2019t there<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[916,431,950,915,28,1187,2591,259],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-air-transport","tag-business-general","tag-durango","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines","tag-tourism","tag-transport","tag-transportation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42177","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=42177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85248,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42177\/revisions\/85248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42177"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}