REGINA — Business and tourism leaders are still in a honeymoon phase over the new direct flights from Regina International Airport to Denver.
The early days of United Express’s direct service to Denver were a prime topic at the airport’s business roundtable with community, business and tourism leaders Thursday.
The audience at the event at Hotel Saskatchewan heard from Daniel Belmont, Senior Manager of Marketing Planning at SkyWest Airlines, about how things are going with the new route.
“So far, things are off to a great start. We've got a great partnership with the community and the airport, and we're seeing good ridership so far and looking forward to ongoing service here.”
The United Express direct route to and from Denver launched on May 15, after what was a ten year absence.
SkyWest Airlines is the operator of the flights, as they act as regional airline partner with United. SkyWest has a similar role with other major U.S. airlines Delta, American and Alaska, using their own fleet of aircraft.
SkyWest operates the flights using their own CRJ200 50-seat regional jets, but all the branding and paint on the aircraft is United Express. When passengers check in their baggage at the Regina airport, they go to the United desk.
“And so from a customer-facing perspective, those passengers are enjoying a United product, and SkyWest is kind of in the background operating the flight with our pilots and supporting the operation.”
James Bogusz, the CEO of Regina Airport Authority, noted how big a deal it is for Regina to have direct air service to Denver, one of the largest airports in the world.
“The scale of Denver is unprecedented for Regina," Bogusz said. "It's larger than Toronto. It's larger than Vancouver. It's by far the largest airport we connect to with over 80 million passengers a year. Denver is number six in the world in terms of passenger ranking at the moment. United represents half of the volume of that airport. And your capital city, in my beautiful province, now connects there seven days a week as of May 15. “
Belmont said that as far as passenger loads go, things are looking promising early on.
“So the advance bookings for the flights are looking pretty strong for us. So the month of May, we had the plane about 60 percent full, and the oncoming months are looking to be stronger than that. So we're very optimistic about the load factors that we're seeing here in Regina.”
Bogusz said the 60 per cent figure this early is a good sign for the route.
“In your first month, you expect very little activity," said Bogusz. He said loads of 60 per cent at this point are "incredible given not only the climate, but the fact that the flight was brand new. And looking ahead into June and July, they showed some projections, and the trend lines are very exciting,” said Bogusz.
“I would have expected to take upwards of six months to a year to be seeing closer to 80 per cent load factor, and I would be quite surprised if it wasn't over the next few months, as long as the public continues to embrace this new service.”
The route is backed by a three-year, $3 million revenue guarantee by the provincial government, described as an “insurance policy” which will allow the route to be able to develop over time. The expectation is that eventually the route will need to stand on its own in generating revenue.
The tourist backlash to the “51st State” rhetoric and tariffs from President Donald Trump does not seem to have hurt the Denver route, at least so far.
“We were watching it closely to see how it might impact things, but it seems like the community's been able to rally around the service and overcome those headwinds pretty well so far,” said Belmont.
The consensus among those at the meeting seemed to be that as a logical next step, they wanted perhaps a second daily route to Denver, and then add direct flights to Chicago. Belmont saw it the same way.
“Yeah, I think first and foremost, people would love to see additional flights to Denver to take advantage of the connecting opportunities there,” said Belmont.
“But I'd say a close second is a connection to Chicago to move passengers kind of east and south. And so definitely looking at those two options in the future.”
The priority right now, said Belmont, is that “we're definitely focused on this Denver service, getting it up and running. But as it becomes successful and sustainable here over time, we're definitely looking at additional routes that we could establish here in Regina, or adding a little more schedule depth to Denver as another example. So we're very optimistic about new opportunities, and we'll keep a close eye on how things perform here and look to add as time goes on.”
Bogusz agreed that in the short term, the priority is “all about supporting the current service that just began."
“But in the medium term, it's more frequency to Denver. Having access to that hub multiple times per day, ideally twice a day, would be a goal and a target for our airport and our local community. This single flight represents well over $5 million of economic activity in a single flight. It's partly about the connections and the tourists that may come to our city. It's also about the business connectivity. This is truly a business service on a business-class jet operating 50 seats.”
