The Boyd Group: Denver International - Ten Years Later.
Aviation Planning Article (scroll down to March 7th)
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- We pointed out that the city's own 1988 EIS found that the old Stapleton could be expanded to handle over 72 million passengers annually - double the number going through DIA today. And at a fraction of the cost, too. A couple of big contributions to Pena's election fund, and voila! nobody could find a copy of that EIS.
- We pointed out the jive studies the city paid for to spin the new airport. Like the "distinguished global consulting firm" that churned out the report that stated Denver by 1993 at the latest would need an airport to handle over 50 weekly trans-Atlantic nonstops per week, including the huge demand that would pop up like a Jack In The Box to places like Madrid and Brussels. Our analyses said this was nothing more than a sunshine report. Today, twelve years later, DIA has nonstops to Frankfurt and London only - and the city had to pay big incentives to get them.
- We correctly forecast that Denver would lose one of its hubbing carriers - probably Continental - because of the high costs of DIA. Right on. The president of Continental at the time noted the extra $50 million in annual costs DIA would inflict on his carrier. Poof! Gone with the hub. And that took the only trans-Atlantic service - London - with it. It was at least four years and hundreds of thousands in incentive dough to get British Airways to enter the Denver-London market..