Over the past five years US low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines has overtaken US major United Airlines and local budget carrier Frontier Airlines to become the largest airline operator from Denver International Airport (DEN), host of this year’s Routes Americas forum, which opens at the start of next month.
According to data from OAG Schedules Analyser, Southwest Airlines has more than doubled its departure capacity from Colorado's largest air gateway between 2008 and 2014 to hold a 27.1 per cent share of available departure seats last year. Southwest Airlines has expanded its offering from DEN every year since its arrival in 2006 and last year offered just under 8.5 million seats from the airport.
The airline’s annual offering exceeded that of Frontier Airlines in 2010 and overtook the mainline activities of United Airlines in 2011, although it remains behind the US major if you factor in the regional operations of its partner carriers. The US major actually boosted its mainline DEN departure capacity in 2014 after six successive years of capacity declines and held a 23.4 per cent share last year, but rising to 40.7 per cent when you also incorporate regional flying.
In the chart, below, we highlight the largest airlines at DEN based on annual departure capacity over the past ten years.
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