Though the Federal Aviation Administration expected this Thanksgiving to be one of the busiest in terms of air travel in the past 15 years – with an estimated 360,000 flights scheduled through the week – the Durango-La Plata County Airport on Wednesday afternoon was surprisingly quiet.
The airport saw a bump in passenger traffic, but Aviation Director Tony Vicari said everything was running smoothly.
“From a strictly aircraft travel perspective, things have gone well,” Vicari said. “It's been a clear-weather week, so no major interruptions, which is always nice seeing lots of people move through the terminal as they all head out to various family and friend gatherings for Thanksgiving or arrive here to visit friends in our area.”
Vicari said an increase in holiday traffic was expected. Since the airport is located 20 miles outside of Durango, that means it had to prepare for increased parking.
The airport implemented a trial holiday surge price, raising the parking rate from $9 to $14 per day. The surge rates will apply only to heightened travel days, he said, such as the Thanksgiving week and the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Vicari said the Thanksgiving holiday typically creates the biggest demand on airport parking. So this year, the airport took a different approach to parking: It is running a shuttle from the overflow parking lot and implementing the surge rates. That strategy was meant to encourage passengers to find alternate modes of transportation to and from the airport, like carpooling and public ground transport, Vicari said.
Vicari said that strategy has worked – so far at least. As of Wednesday afternoon, the airport had about 100 cars in its remote shuttle lot and had not needed to utilize its overflow parking.
“At least preliminarily, it appears that there was some degree of success in our messaging and intent with our surge pricing,” he said.
Still, Vicari recommended travelers arrive early to avoid a potentially stressful travel day.
“We’re a smaller regional airport, meaning we’re really convenient,” Vicari said. “You can get in and out of here quite quickly, which is great. But our users have to remember that there’s a lot of folks traveling at the holidays.”
Vicari said travel plans should incorporate the possibility of having to park far away or the possibility of weather delays. A good rule of thumb, he said, is to arrive two hours early.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
