Originally Posted by Scott6067

I am currently working on a strategic management project about DIA. I was looking at several posible ideas of what DIA could do to help itself improve its bottom line. The first thing that came to mind was the re-hubing of DIA by CO. CO has the facilities in place as they committed to the new airport when they were still hubbing in Denver. They have the support facilities there and with CO's bottom line improving and with the airport reducing some fees it seems like it would be a good time and place for CO to think about building a hub there again.

I have the following questions for my fellow CO FTs:

1 - Do you think CO would ever Hub at DIA again?
Only if there was a UA-CO merger.

2 - Would you fly CO in/out of DIA?
Probably not.

3 - Do you feel that this would be western enough to be built out as a hub for CO again?
Probably not, the places that I would be flying to I can get flights out IAH, or ATL. DIA would be a hub to the smaller western cities that do not get mainline service out of IAH/EWR, so it would be more like a CLE hub (Barbie Jet hub) then IAH/EWR. The problem with that is DL already has a well established western RJ hub at SLC. So of the 90 people that would be using the hub 85 are already on DL.

4 - Potential benefits of a CO Hub at DIA?
1) Expansion in to smaller western markets most efficiently served by Barbie jets. 2) slight improvement in aircraft utilization as east-west transcons can make a r/t to Denver before making the red-eye west-east transcon.


5 - Potential negatives of a CO Hub at DIA?
1) mainline competing with UA and LCC Frontier
2) Regional jet competition with DL
3) CO would be more vulnerable to cold weather disruptions.


Answer any questions that you wish. Thanks in advance for your thoughts as yall play the airline game a lot better than me.