Aspen airline counts up in February
Outlined below is a summary of February’s numbers at PItkin County/Aspen Airport. While overall passenger counts exceeded last February, they fell 7% short of the prior record set in February of 2020.
February results:
- Scheduled flights: 853 total flights scheduled in and out, +5.3% over the 810 flights offered last February, but -2.4% from the record 874 flights offered in February 2018.
- February completion percentage: 88.9% this year versus 88.4% last year. This is in line with the five-year average for February.
- Total actual flown seats in and out: Up 5.7% from last February, but -5.6% from the record number of February seats flown in 2018.
- Total passengers flown: 78,727 total arriving and departing , +0.9% to last February, but -6.9% from the record February 2020.
- Overall February load factor: 75.7% versus 79.2% last February and 77.8% in February 2020.
Peak winter schedules start to wind down this weekend: Saturday will be the final day of United’s peak winter schedules as the airlines start the transition from their winter to spring flights schedules. There may be as many as 32 daily flights through this Saturday, that number drops to 22 from Sunday through the following weekend, although additional flights added by United next weekend to accommodate outbound demand. Aspen will drop to eight daily flights the following week starting on April 4.
To briefly summarize each airlines winter to spring transition plans:
- American will continue their full winter schedule of eight daily flights from four hubs plus Austin through Monday, April 3, then drop to one daily flights from DFW only.
- Delta plans to operate their three daily flights (two from ATL plus one from LAX) through Sunday, April 2, suspending their winter seasonal service for the spring.
United adds an additional daily DEN-EGE flight during ASE Airport closure May 10-24: For those seeking travel options during the ASE airport closure in May, I wanted to point out that United has added a fourth daily flight between DEN & EGE using a CRJ700 and a crew that would have otherwise been used for ASE.
Summer routes finalized: Below is the flight map for this summer, same as last summer. This one difference being that American has expanded Austin service from Saturday only to daily June 1-Aug. 14. Total summer seat capacity (June-August) is now 3.8% higher than last summer with a total of 19 daily nonstops from seven cities on American and United.
— Bill Tomcich, Airplanners, Basalt.
Local 14 year old writes young adult novels
Nyala Honey has done more in her 14 years on this earth than many people accomplish in decades. The 14-year-old Basalt resident has published two young adult novels, which she’ll talk about and read from at Explore Booksellers at 2 p.m. on June 8.
