I heard once they staffed DEN 756 fully with 150 crews, they would start to reduce IAH 756 by the same number.

I flew the 10 and 727 out of there for a brief period. London and Hawaii on the 10, alot of different stuff on the 72.

The base shrank as the loss margins widened with the LCC's invasion and marketing realized ( and admitted), that Denver is a relatively small remote city with little O and D traffic.

The reason Denver opened in the first place was that prior to jets, everyone needed a refueling stop between the coastal hubs.

Denver will open, grow and shrink again when this current group of marketing gurus admit it's a loser for anything larger than 150 seats. Always has been.

Finally to answer your question; the flying will be very inconsistent as marketing hunts and pecks for yield in a thin market.

I don't doubt your analysis of the Denver of the past...but this is not your 1980s Denver. The 10 county Denver area is now about 3M peeps. The median housing listing as of 4/17 is 420K. The unemployment rate is 2.7%. Southwest Airlines came in here in 2006 with 13 flights a day, today they have just under 200. At our flight ops pow wows, management has consistently opined that "Denver is our most profitable hub". AND there ain't no guppy or A320 that can make it to HI from Denver. So I'm guessing the 757 base will do just fine. BUT, I could be wrong. ;)

That's pretty scary. Was there peyote involved in this pow wow?
Last I heard SFO had the number one spot.

A quick check shows Denver ranked at number 18 by GDP in US metro areas, wedged firmly between Baltimore and San Diego, below other such megalopolises as Detroit, Minneapolis and Seattle.

Confirms my belief about marketing Turks.

edit;
I just realized that we could take on Icelandair to Keflavik. Nevermind..

For BMEP (I underlined DEN's O&D ranking): https://www.flydenver.com/about/pres...senger_traffic

In 2016, DEN saw a record-setting 58.3 million passengers
This ranks DEN as the third-fastest growing airport in the world, behind only Kuala Lumpur and Delhi
DEN as the sixth busiest airport in the U.S. and 19th busiest in the world (according to 2015 numbers. 2016 figures have yet to be released)
Approximately 65 percent of travelers at DEN are origination and destination (O&D) passengers, and 35 percent are connecting
Approximately 35 million annual domestic passengers are O&D passengers, making DEN the fourth-largest domestic O&D hub in the U.S.
International traffic at DEN accounts for approximately 2.2 million passengers annually – approximately 4 percent of the airport’s total passenger traffic

As someone pointed out. Southwest has done a remarkable job in Denver... of creating a market. It's just not our market.
Were these figures compiled by Denver airport authority or their lobbyists, I wonder.

Their source citation is "Denver Marketing". Curious they didn't use DoT data or link their reports.

It was on the internet so it must be true. :D

I tried to sift through the DoT data before posting that link/quote. In spite of spending half an hour or so, I wasn't able to find where DoT hides those numbers. YMMV. If you can find a current list of top O&D cities in the US, please post it.

I've seen other (older) posts on different websites where DEN was near the top of the list for O&D. Others at/near the top were NYC, LAX, LAS, MCO.

Denver has a lot of regional headquarters for Federal agencies so I could see where it generates a lot of O&D traffic, not to mention O&D from all of the skiers in the winter.

Here are the numbers for 2016 domestic origin/destination for all our hubs from the DOT:

Chicago (all airports) 2,360,000
Houston (all airports) 1,109,000
New York (all airports)= 3,391,000
Wash DC (all airports)= 2,116,000
Cle = 418,000
Denver = 1,563,000
LA (all airports)= 3,168,000
SFO (all airports)= 2,483,000

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/Oneway...d=&sort_order=

I agree with BMEP, and it is a moment in time. Assuming the current revenue Nazi's are correct, it validates the decisions our revenue nazi's made 2-5 years ago, and they shrank DEN until the connecting traffic made a lot of money.

The decisions made now won't be validated for 2-5 years. I hope it works, but I just turn the wheel, and pull the gear handle. But I do pay attention, and have skin in the game.

If the company is going to continue to make monumental staffing changes every 2-5 years, maybe a monumental change to our commuter policy might be an important bullet to start our next negotiations.

But, I agree with BMEP.

The 757 departures are already here. A base will just save a sheet ton of cash in crew hotels according to Howard. In any case, apparently it's gonna happen, and it's a boon for us Denver dwellers. Bring it on baby! Wheeeew. :cool: