On-demand and chartered personal flights referred to as air taxis have gained recognition because the pandemic at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport (ASE), surpassing operations from business carriers at an airfield the place normal aviation and air taxis make up 80% of the flights. Additionally, normal aviation operations in 2021 reached their highest degree since 2008.
Pitkin County commissioners on July 12 licensed the airport’s aviation demand forecast , which tasks enplanement and plane fleet tendencies for the following 20 years, for submission to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA nonetheless must approve the forecast — a prerequisite for the company to assist finance a brand new terminal and a possible redevelopment of the airport’s runway that will widen it to 150 toes — the FAA standardized width for an Airport Design Group III facility — from 100 toes.
The runway widening would broaden the airport’s present wingspan restrict to 118 toes from 95 toes, opening the door to bigger plane. The dialog was initiated about 10 years in the past with issues concerning the lifespan and way forward for CRJ-700 — the one plane utilized by business air carriers serving Aspen — however business flights characterize solely 20% of ASE’s operations.
The remaining 80% are divided amongst normal aviation, which incorporates privately operated planes, enterprise jets and leisure flights, and air taxis, that are plane with seating restricted to 60 and carrying cargo or passengers for rent or compensation. This consists of flight providers offered by private-jet constitution and fractional-jet possession corporations.
An evaluation by Aspen Journalism utilizing knowledge from the FAA and Vector — which is the county’s contractor that handles airport touchdown charges — in addition to knowledge from the flight-tracking web site Flightaware for ASE for 2021 and 2022 supplies perception into the overall aviation and air taxi sector, the typical age of these plane, and their origins and locations.
Probably the most-used normal aviation and air taxi plane in 2021 and 2022 at Aspen/Pitkin County Airport was the midsize jet Bombardier Challenger 300 with almost 5,000 operations. Twenty-nine % of these flights have been operated by NetJets and 20% by FlexJet. The typical manufacturing yr for the Bombardier Challenger 300 is 2012, starting from 2003 to 2022. This photographed plane is likely one of the oldest Bombardier Challenger 300s working at ASE — a 2004 mannequin. Oliver Semple/For Aspen Journalism
It’s price noting that the FAA and Vector don’t use the identical approach for knowledge recording. The FAA information takeoffs and landings by the tower, whereas Vector makes use of a digital camera that reads the tail variety of every plane about to take off. Flightaware knowledge signifies origin and vacation spot and en-route time along with the mannequin of the plane.
The FAA’s Operations Community (OPSNET) recorded 102,952 operations at ASE in 2021-22. Eighty-nine % of these have been itinerant flights, that are these arriving or departing the airport space. The FAA recorded 11,320 leisure flights — that are native normal aviation that takes off after which returns to ASE — throughout these two years.
Forty-two % of the roughly 91,000 itinerant operations in 2021-22 have been normal aviation and 34% have been air taxis. At ASE, many of the air taxis have been operated by NetJets or Flexjet, which supply fractional-ownership shares in personal enterprise jets and different flight-service choices. In the meantime, air carriers — business flights operated by American and United airways and seasonally by Delta Air Traces — represented lower than one-fourth of the airport’s operations.
Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
Air taxi service on the rise at ASE
Because of their for-hire side, air taxis are thought-about business flights by the FAA. However as a result of they have a tendency to make use of smaller plane and fly out of the fixed-based operator (FBO) terminal as an alternative of the business terminal, they’re typically grouped along with normal aviation.
Tyson Weihs, an area pilot and CEO of ForeFlight, a flight software program firm, mentioned that many plane could fly as an air taxi in the future and as normal aviation the following, making it troublesome to distinguish between the 2 sorts of operations.
A spokesperson for Atlantic Aviation, which runs Aspen’s FBO and is in negotiations with Pitkin County for a long-term contract to handle the power, instructed Aspen Journalism that it doesn’t distinguish between air taxi and normal aviation operations.
The 2023 aviation demand forecast, which is a part of the bigger airport structure plan replace required by the FAA with the intention to fund enhancements, mentioned normal aviation operations at ASE have been dropping since 2000, from 33,748 operations in 2000 to 24,043 in 2022. Nevertheless, they noticed a rebound through the pandemic to 25,847 operations in 2021. In the meantime, air taxi operations have been rising, from 7,199 in 2000 to fifteen,048 in 2022.
“To some extent, it could possibly be the arrival of expertise that makes it simpler for individuals to share rides,” saidlocal air service marketing consultant Invoice Tomcich, commenting on the expansion in air-taxi flights. He added that crowdsourcing expertise permits individuals to share journeys on personal jets. “It’s each a greater use of the economics and it’s additionally higher for the setting [as they] share a non-public jet journey. [It lowers] the emissions for passengers.”
The report mentions that the expansion pattern for air taxi service at ASE has “typically moved in the wrong way of air service operations.” Air taxis gained recognition after 9/11 and when America West Airways and Northwest Airways ceased operations at ASE in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Operations at ASE then declined from 2008 to 2012 when Frontier Airways had a route between Aspen and Denver. From 2013 to 2019, air taxi operations recorded regular progress and surged through the pandemic when common business service was scaled again.
Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
If air taxi and normal aviation flights are grouped collectively, their operations have been regular total prior to now 20 years at ASE.
NetJets, which didn’t reply to a request for remark, is Aspen’s greatest air taxi operator, with 3,958 recorded departures from the airport in 2021-22 out of 33,140 normal aviation and air taxi departures, in accordance with the Vector knowledge. Flexjet is second, with 2,085 such departures.
The highest 5 personal planes flying to Aspen
NetJets’ major plane mannequin is the Cessna Quotation Sovereign, which was used for about 40% of the 2021-2022 NetJets’ departures at ASE. The Ohio-based firm’s common plane age is about eight years, whereas the typical age of all normal aviation and air taxi plane that operated at ASE in 2021-22 is about 16 years, in accordance with Aspen Journalism’s evaluation of ASE operation knowledge, which makes use of FAA registration numbers and plane data within the FAA registry. Knowledge exhibits that 188 various kinds of plane flew out and in Aspen as normal aviation or air taxi in 2021-22. The years that these planes have been constructed vary from 1947 to 2022. It ought to be famous that some plane registrations are incomplete and that foreign-based plane aren’t included on this common.
Probably the most-used normal aviation and air taxi plane in 2021 and 2022 at ASE was the midsize jet Bombardier Challenger 300, with almost 5,000 operations. Twenty-nine % of these flights have been operated by NetJets and 20% by FlexJet. In accordance with FlightAware, the Embraer Phenom 300 was the second-most-popular normal aviation/air taxi plane at ASE, with about 4,000 operations; half of these have been by both NetJets or FlexJet, in accordance with Vector’s knowledge, which supplies details about operators. Subsequent got here the long-range enterprise jet Gulfstream IV, with about 3,750 operations, adopted by the enterprise jet Cessna Excel and the small turboprop plane Pilatus PC-12, every with greater than 3,000 operations, in accordance with Flightaware. In the meantime, the CRJ-700, the one business plane working at ASE, recorded about 22,750 operations throughout these two years.
Throughout 2021-22, about 1,920 operations have been recorded for the Gulfstream V, a category of plane that features the Gulfstream G550 — the present “crucial plane,” or the biggest normal aviation or air taxi plane with no less than 500 operations flying yearly at ASE. In accordance with the Vector knowledge, which supplies the tail variety of every plane and provides additional particulars concerning the mannequin, the 94-foot wingspan G550 plane recorded 469 departures (about 940 operations) throughout these two years, together with 260 departures (about 520 operations) in 2022.
The typical manufacturing yr for the Bombardier Challenger 300 is 2012, starting from 2003 to 2022; the typical yr for the Embraer Phenom 300 is 2016, starting from 2010 to 2022. The Cessna Excel and the Gulfstream IV are older, with a mean yr of manufacture of 2006 and 2002, respectively — the oldest being from 1987.
“Airways … purchase a jet, they usually’ll keep it up for 15 or 20 years till it turns into … economically not viable for them,” mentioned ASE Director Dan Bartholomew. “It doesn’t appear to occur as a lot on the overall aviation aspect. That’s arduous to inform. I imply I’ve seen those that’ll flip over a jet yearly, however some individuals maintain on to it longer.”
Additionally of notice, in 2021-22, ASE recorded 31 normal aviation operations from a Boeing 737-500, a smaller model of the frequent business airliner. All these flights have been from one plane — a 1998 Boeing 737-500 registered beneath a Texas-based oil and gasoline firm, Montex Drilling Co. That airplane is ready to land in Aspen with its 95-foot wingspan. Opposition to airport growth is animated, partly, by concern that bigger business 737s that aren’t allowed at ASE beneath present wingspan restrictions may fly right here if the runway is expanded.
The 2023 aviation demand forecast tasks that whole normal aviation and air taxi operations will enhance within the subsequent 20 years by about 29%, with an annualized progress price of 1.3% per yr, an evaluation counting on an FAA forecast and “assumptions primarily based on native market situations.”
The report additionally forecasts that the present Gulfstream G650 and in-production plane such because the G700/800, the Bombardier World 8000 and the Dassault Falcon 10X — all of which aren’t at the moment allowed to fly into ASE as a result of their bigger wingspan — will enter service between 2032 and 2037 at ASE, offered that the runway is expanded.
“Based mostly on data shared by Gulfstream with the airport,” the report says, “there’s a sturdy demand for entry to ASE with new but‐to‐be‐delivered Gulfstream jets.”
Amory Lovins, director of Aspen Fly Proper, a bunch that’s casting doubt on the necessity for the runway growth, is skeptical of the overall aviation operations progress forecast offered within the report.
“GA operations fell 4.5% per yr in 2000-14 and 1.7% per yr in 2000-22, then fell once more in 2022 after a two-year surge of pandemic refugees. I see no trigger prone to maintain important GA progress apart from superefficient and electrical air taxis,” Lovins wrote. “But when their beneficiant progress forecast have been achieved, their point-to-point routes would change some [air carrier] journey, whose grossly exaggerated forecast would turn into even much less believable, additional undermining expansionist arguments.”
He additionally identified that innovation within the aviation business, corresponding to the event of electrical jets, was not thought-about within the forecast.
The place are we flying?
Flightaware knowledge supplies insights on the origin and vacation spot of every plane that flies in or out of ASE. The commonest locations from 2021-22 for air taxi and normal aviation plane have been Centennial (close to Denver), Van Nuys (close to Los Angeles), Dallas and Eagle County. Rifle is the fifth-most-common origin metropolis and the Twelfth-most-common vacation spot.
Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
The busiest normal aviation airports within the nation embrace Teterboro, New Jersey; West Palm Seashore, Florida; Dallas Love Discipline, Texas; Westchester, New York and Van Nuys — all of which serve massive metropolitan areas and three of them are among the many 10 most-common origin or vacation spot airports for ASE operations. Nevertheless, there may be additionally a number of visitors heading to and from different regional airports.
“The airplanes are likely to go from Aspen to the place the following constitution is, whether or not Rifle, Eagle, Denver,” in accordance with the Atlantic Aviation spokesperson.
Brian Condie, director of the Rifle Garfield County Airport, mentioned Rifle’s airport exercise is strongly linked to Aspen’s.
“When Aspen has a really busy yr with plane operations, the Rifle airport has a really busy yr; when Aspen has a nasty or an off yr [with] low plane operations, we now have low plane operations,” he mentioned. “If they’ll’t get into Aspen due to the climate or dimension of plane, then they’ll come right here to entry the area.”
Various elements drive so-called drop-and-go operations at ASE, the place passengers are picked up or dropped off, with the plane staging or repositioning someplace else, typically Eagle, Rifle or a Entrance Vary airport. These elements embrace the present wingspan restriction at ASE, restricted parking house, value of providers and plane operator scheduling.
Laurine Lassalle/Aspen Journalism
“There’s not sufficient ramp house on the Aspen airport to park all of the personal jets [that] are coming in right here, significantly through the peak durations like Christmas and Fourth of July,” Tomcich mentioned.
ASE recorded greater than 2,000 departing or arriving flights at Eagle County airport in 2021-22 and about 1,500 such flights on the Rifle airport.
“A few of them can pay for a smaller plane, smaller jet plane that’s accommodated within the Aspen runway security space to select them up right here and take them up there,” Condie mentioned. “However most likely 98% of them simply get in a limousine firm — ‘a automobile and driver’ is what it’s known as — [that picks] them up and [drives] them as much as Aspen.”
Drop-and-go operations, outlined as having a two-hour-or-less layover between touchdown and takeoff, characterize about 23% of the airport normal aviation and air taxi operations, in accordance with a 2020 Airport Imaginative and prescient Committee presentation. That determine is much like Eagle County airport’s 21%.
The 2020 presentation signifies that 38% of all drop‐and‐go operations contain different Colorado airports, whereas 23% of the drop-and-go operations at Eagle County airport concerned different airports within the state.
“We’re tied on the hip with Aspen and Eagle,” Condie mentioned. “We would like them to have a great yr. Which means we’ll have an excellent, productive yr.”
Aspen Journalism is an area, nonprofit, investigative information group protecting water, the setting, social justice and extra. Go to http://aspenjournalism.org . This reporting is supported partly by Pitkin County’s Wholesome Neighborhood Fund.