Slower fall travel season expected at Colorado Springs Airport after busy summer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Heads up, travelers! A slower fall travel season is expected at the Colorado Springs Airport after a busy summer.

11 News spoke with the COS Airport, who saw over 200,000 passengers travel in and out in July. Summer is a peak travel season for the airport from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

“I think a lot of it has to do with pent up demand for travel for folks that haven’t traveled for awhile because of the pandemic,” said Dana Schield of COS Airport. “We have quite a bit more service than we have had in the past. Southwest Airlines began service last March and really overnight became one of our largest carriers and brought quite a bit of service. When you have more service, you’re naturally going to have more folks traveling through the airport.”

The five major carriers out of COS (American, Delta, Frontier, Southwest and United) saw full planes for the month of July, boasting an 81.3 percent load factor. In July, airlines had 125,168 total seats out of COS, a 29 percent increase compared to July 2019.

As summer travel comes to a close, fall travel from September to November is expected to slow down, resulting in smaller crowds, lower fares, and more flexibility with booking.

“We have big options and we have bigger options than we have in the past. That convenience factor is a really big piece of why people fly COS,” said Schield.

Travel is expected to pick back up around the holiday season. The airport says there will be seasonal flights added in the winter from Southwest Airlines.

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