“Chicago got where it got 40 years ago,” says Mike Boyd, president of aviation consultant Boyd Group International, based in Evergreen, Colo. Denver’s population is surging, up 19.2% between 20. “Ultimately, Chicago will come back and the differential will widen as recovery takes place,” predicts OAG analyst John Grant.īut Denver’s expansion also is a reality check for Chicago airport planners. O’Hare’s status as an international hub will help it eventually regain ground on Denver, which is limited almost exclusively to domestic flights. Additional space could be freed up as some international flying by United and American foreign-carrier partners move to a rebuilt Terminal 2. The O’Hare expansion will add 10 common-use gates at Terminal 5, where Southwest operates. We continue working closely with the city, figuring out where we have resources to grow at O’Hare.” “We’re starting to see some good corporate traffic out of O’Hare. “We are definitely ahead of schedule,” Harvey says of Southwest’s move to O’Hare. The airport’s planned expansion may allow more growth. It’s growing faster at O’Hare than the airline expected when it debuted there in February with just 16 daily flights. Southwest realistically can’t grow much beyond its pre-COVID peak at Midway, which is landlocked. The city is planning an $8.5 billion overhaul of its terminals, replacing Terminal 2 with a facility that will accommodate international passengers from its two biggest airlines, United and American, and satellite concourses that would provide 25% more gate space. But it’s also a reminder of O’Hare’s demographic and cost headwinds, which are likely to increase. It’s proof that continued growth of the airport requires terminal space, as well as runways, and that the O’Hare project is the best way to ensure the airport remains a top aviation hub. What’s happening in Denver is both encouraging and worrisome for Chicago as it pushes ahead with an expansion at O’Hare. “Longer term, both have large gate-expansion projects and are critical midcontinent hubs where we expect to see meaningful growth.” “In the near-term, we expect both Denver and O’Hare to remain around the same size as measured by departures,” the airline says. United already has added four new gates in Denver, and it will take 19 more by the end of next year. Although O’Hare has reclaimed that distinction, United’s seat capacity at Denver now trails O’Hare by only 6%, compared with 21% in 2019 before the pandemic. “Denver is going to be a great candidate, both on the business and leisure side, for continued opportunities.”ĭuring the worst of the pandemic last year, Denver became United’s busiest hub, according to OAG. We have a lot of aircraft coming into the system,” says Dave Harvey, vice president of business travel for Dallas-based Southwest. But when Denver’s expansion is finished, it will have additional growth capacity over the next few years. Southwest hopes to return to its pre-COVID peak of nearly 270 daily flights at Midway. Southwest expects to fly about 249 flights a day from Denver in March and April, compared with about 205 flights at Midway and another 28 at O’Hare.
“Those two airlines view Denver as an opportunity to take advantage of population growth and demographics.” is moving south and west,” says Earl Heffintrayer, an airport analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. “It reflects that the population of the U.S. Before COVID-19, Denver was United’s fourth-busiest hub.īoth Southwest and United have leased additional gates at Denver, which ramped up a terminal expansion during the pandemic. Denver also is now Chicago-based United’s third-busiest hub, just behind O’Hare and Houston’s Bush International Airport, according to data from research firm OAG. Denver has overtaken Midway as the busiest hub for Southwest, a development likely to outlast COVID-19.
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