Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
It'd appear that CO had pulled out of DEN in 1994 (has it been that long since Stapleton closed?) so I would have to withdraw the now-determined-to-be-incorrect answer. Looked up my flight records and my CO intra-CO flights were a couple of years earlier. The DEN-GJT flight was indeed on an ATR but the GJT-DEN was on a MD-80. I remember some flight irregularity and the MD-80 might have been diverted to GJT and I might have been put onboard that.
The new Denver airport finally opened in early 1995 (behind schedule). And, of course, Continental did not completely abandon DEN; they just closed down their hub after apparently having a very tough time competing with United.
I remember when CO with great fanfare began flying mainline equipment (B737-200, B737-300, DC9, D9S) nonstop between Denver and a number of smaller cities in California to include Bakersfield, Fresno, Santa Barbara and Stockton. By and large, this service did not last. By early 1994, Continental was still flying 73S or 733 equipment between DEN and Billings, Bozeman, Jackson Hole and Missoula - reminiscent of the original Frontier. And by 1995, CO was only operating nonstop flights between Denver and their IAH, EWR and CLE hubs, although commuter air carrier GP Express was still flying CO Express code share service between DEN and a number of smaller destinations in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. Also at this same time in 1995, a resurrected, new start up version of Frontier (F9) was up and running with a small hub at Denver operating 73S equipment to Albuquerque, Billings, Bismarck, Bozeman, El Paso, Fargo, Great Falls, Missoula, Las Vegas, Omaha and Tucson.