Frontier Airlines passengers in Denver would step on the tarmac to get on and off planes under a new plan that commits the carrier to DIA well into the next decade.
Denver International Airport has proposed $317 million in contract additions for concourse projects that include a big one aimed at keeping its third-largest carrier happy, with room to grow. DIA would spend $183 million to renovate and expand an existing ground-load facility used mostly by other airlines at the eastern end of Concourse A.
Denver-based Frontier, which now operates mostly out of nine traditional A gates with jet bridges, would get exclusive use and branding for all 14 gates in the expanded ground-load facility. Its move by early 2024 would open up more gates for other airlines, allowing DIA more flexibility to shuffle gate assignments.
While the move to ground loading would save Frontier money in the long run, its executives say the decision was more about efficiency.
The new gates would allow quicker turnaround times between flights, cutting the time by nearly half in some cases. That’s because the airline could load and unload passengers at two airplane doors simultaneously, via a switch-backing ramp at the front that’s accessible for people with disabilities and a stairway at the back. Each gate would be able to process more planes per day.
“Anybody who travels internationally … within Europe, you’re going to see ground boarding just about everywhere, even for mainline aircraft,” said Jake Filene, senior vice president of Frontier’s customers division. “So for us, it makes a more efficient process and allows us to do what we’re all striving to do, which is to have our aircraft in the sky and not sitting on the ground.”
One downside for passengers is the long trek between the new gates and the center of Concourse A, with its connections to DIA’s terminal. They also will be more exposed to the elements while boarding.
But the proposal, which a Denver City Council committee advanced Wednesday afternoon, answers a question that’s hung in the air through other recent gate expansions at DIA: What about Frontier?
United and Southwest airlines locked down all 39 new gates that will open by year’s end as part of $1.5 billion in expansions across all three concourses. United, which operates one of its largest connecting hubs at DIA, had the largest market share last year, at 44%, while Southwest came in second, at nearly 32%.
Frontier, whose market share was 11%, maintains DIA as its second-largest base, behind Orlando International Airport.
The hometown airline is in the midst of a proposed merger with Spirit Airlines, a fellow “ultra low-cost” airline with a largely complementary route network serving the Eastern United States and the Carribean. But that deal was challenged this week by a competing unsolicited bid by JetBlue Airways to buy Spirit.
Whatever happens is unlikely to affect its new plans in Denver, Frontier says.
“This is a commitment to Denver,” Filene said. “It’s a commitment to capacity growth in Denver and a new passenger experience in Denver.”
The pandemic interrupted a long streak of growth in passenger traffic at DIA, but the latest numbers for February exceeded 2019 levels, CEO Phil Washington said. With airline interest in DIA high, the airport — which is supported entirely by the revenue it generates — has been spending billions of dollars on expansion projects. Those include a drawn-out terminal renovation that won’t be done for at least five years.
George Karayiannakis, DIA’s deputy manager of aviation, noted that airlines’ typical leases run three years, making Frontier’s 10-year agreement “a very big deal.” It will take effect when the new facility is finished in two years.
“We expect that this lease will last us through 2034,” he told the committee.
Frontier’s new facility, if approved by the City Council in coming weeks, would be 120,000 square feet, expanding on two existing, low-slung wings that extend eastward from the end of Concourse A. A 37,000-square-foot addition would extend the north wing, which DIA built four years ago to provide nine temporary gates for United while concourse construction was underway elsewhere.
The expanded facility would include support space and, between the gate wings, a new 8,000 square-foot maintenance facility. A handful of commuter airlines that use some of the current ground gates will move soon to a new ground facility that’s part of Concourse C’s expansion.
To pay for most of the new project, DIA plans to issue bonds repaid by its $4.50 passenger facility charge on each ticket. Filene said Frontier’s new rent structure, which keeps its per-gate rates flat instead of decreasing them for the ground-load gates, also will help pay for the cost.
Frontier had leased 14 gates at DIA until it gave up six of them under a lease amendment in late 2015 that was aimed at saving money by consolidating its operation at DIA. More recently, as the airline and DIA assessed its needs, Frontier operated on a short-term lease.
The airline now serves about 80 destinations from Denver and says it needs the additional capacity to grow.
“This agreement marks a new era for Frontier Airlines and Denver International Airport,” President and CEO Barry Biffle said in a statement provided by Frontier.
Other new projects proposed at DIA
Documents filed with a council committee ahead of Wednesday’s meeting outline $317 million in contract amendments with the prime contractors responsible for its Concourse Expansion Program. That program, originally $1.5 billion, was expanded to $2.1 billion in 2020 to add customizations for United and Southwest and refurbishments to older parts of the concourses.
DIA is amending the contracts again without fresh bids for new work, though Stu Williams, the senior vice president of airport expansion, said subcontractors would perform much of it.
“Those contractors act as general contractors … (and) a lot of the work that you’ll see here does get bid out through the community,” Williams told the committee.
Besides the ground-load expansion for Frontier, other new components proposed include pavement rehabilitation for apron areas at several original gates and a new taxiway to expand de-icing pad capacity.
They also include about $50 million in insurance-covered repairs to the gate expansion on the east end of Concourse B, where the rupture of a hot-water pipe in December caused extensive damage to the nearly complete addition. Additional management and engineering costs have pushed the latest estimate to $58.3 million.
