Last year was Denver International Airport’s busiest year on record.
Airline inventories have not yet fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but passengers have returned in droves, with millions using Colorado’s hub.
“We will end 2023 with far higher than expected annual passenger numbers of approximately 78 million passengers,” said Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport. “So this has been tremendous growth.”
The airport, known to Coloradoans as DIA, opened in 1995. Initially built to handle 50 million passengers per year, DIA estimates that number is expected to reach more than 100 million per year by 2027.
OAG, a global travel data provider, said Denver went from the 21st busiest airport in the world in 2019 to sixth in 2023.
United Airlines is Denver’s largest airline with a 46.7% market share, followed by Southwest Airlines with 30.7% and Frontier Airlines with 9.7%, according to DIA.
Midcontinent Airport is United Airlines’ busiest hub. The company recently invested nearly $1 billion in Denver to add gates, flights and destinations, and opened the largest lounge in its network.
“About 60% of our customers are connecting from other locations, and 40% of our customers are local to Denver, which is a fast-growing city,” said Jonah McGrath, United’s vice president of Denver Airport Operations. Stated. “We hope to grow to around 650 flights per day by 2030.”
CNBC went behind the scenes at United Airlines’ Denver operations to find out how the airport and airline plan to meet demand.
Watch the video to learn more.