High Points: The friendly skies

Hope you got a ticket out this weekend.

Yes, if you were planning an impromptu trip to Mexico in May, then you might be out of “suerte” if you aren’t heading out soon because the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport is shutting down on Cinco de Mayo for the rest of Mayo.

According to the United website, the last flight out of Aspen to Denver is United 5770 at 8:45 a.m. on Monday, May 5, and, as of this writing, there are still seats available. And the next United flight in? That would be on June 1 when UA5779 leaves Denver at 7:10 p.m. That’s a 27-day closure.

Why, you may ask, is the airport shuttering for such an extended period of time? Well, like so many of us who are aging at altitude in Aspen, the runways need a little work. Yes, it’s time to reseal the surfaces and fill the cracks. Botox won’t do the job. They are applying a “slurry seal over the full runway,” according to Interim Airport Director Diane Jackson in a story earlier this week in The Aspen Times.

Me? I’m all for the month-long layoff, as my travel plans for the time being have me parked right here at home in Old Snowmass in a house that is right under the normal flight path. For the next month or so, I will not miss the sound of Embraer 175s, G550s, or the occasional Cessna Citation. I suspect we’ll get the occasional analog sound of a prop plane as the empty skies may host some single-engine Piper Cub from the Glenwood Springs airport on a leisurely sightseeing flight. But for the most part, it will be pretty quiet around here.

All this comes after our little airport saw 100,000 passengers pass through the terminal in March — an all-time record. That’s more people than the crowd for a Beyoncé Cowboy Carter Tour show at SOFI Stadium. Anybody who flew in or out of Aspen/Pitkin County Airport in March knows it could use a new terminal. Jedediah’s, the only restaurant at Sardy Field, must make more burgers than any other place in the valley.

It is tough to argue that anything is more valued and valuable to our town than the four ski mountains, but the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport is likely in an unrivaled second place. But while everyone loves Ajax, Highlands, the ‘Mass, and the ‘Milk, they don’t necessarily feel the same way about the airport. In fact, there seems to be a lot of angst these days concerning the airport, which serves so many of us in so many different ways. I hate to say it, but that is so Aspen.

One of the reasons I was able to move here over 30 years ago is because Aspen had an airport that could get me where I needed to go. I used to think of Sardy Field as being a bit like a bus or a train terminal. As long as I could take the cross-mountain flight to Denver, I was connected to the world. That still is the case, but rather than flying old Dash-7s to the now nearly forgotten Stapleton Airport, today I am just as likely to make my connections in Chicago, Houston, or LA on one of the new narrow body E175s that the airlines are using.

Yes, everything changes, and it is time for the next iteration of the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport.

Plans are underway, and the mandated realignment of the runway and the construction of a new terminal will make a closure for the month of May seem like a walk in the park.

Or if you live in a flight path, like a dream come true.