Eagle County Regional Airport


Eagle County Regional Airport is in Gypsum, Colorado, 4 miles from Eagle and 37 miles from Vail. It covers and has one runway. The History Channel rated Eagle County Regional Airport as #8 on its list of Most Extreme Airports in July 2010 due to the elevation, weather, approach through mountainous terrain and challenging departure procedures. In 2008-09 the airport completed a runway repaving and extension project, increasing the runway length to 9,000 feet.
The airport is largely seasonal, with more scheduled flights in winter. During ski season EGE is the second busiest airport in Colorado after Denver International Airport due to its proximity to Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts. Some passengers prefer to fly into EGE rather than Aspen since Eagle has lower minimums allowing a better potential to land in bad weather. Despite being advertised as Vail Airport by airlines and other entities, it is a 45-minute drive to Vail via Interstate 70. Flights during summer have become popular with tourists, with United Airlines and American Airlines offering service nearly year round.
The airport is popular with private aircraft operators and has one of the top rated fixed-base operators in the country, the Vail Valley Jet Center. Private jet charter operators include Clay Lacy Aviation, Charter Flight Group, Jet Partners, and Stratos Jet Charters.

Terminal and facilities

EGE's terminal has one concourse with five gates, built in 1996 and remodeled in 2001, 2007, and 2019. There are four TSA screening lanes, a pre-security concession/gift shop, and three luggage carousels, in addition to a special ski/snowboard slide. In 2012, a new inline baggage handling system was constructed in time for the 2012/13 ski season. Beyond the security checkpoint, there is a restaurant, coffee shop, gift shop, and bar. The Airport also offers free wifi in the terminal. The Airport has customs facilities for private aircraft located at the Vail Valley Jet Center.
The facility is in the midst of a terminal expansion project. On July 1, 2019 the first phase of this project opened, with access to the new terminal with four gates with jet bridges, enhanced concessions, and other new aviation technology. The final two ground-loading gates should open in time for the 2019/2020 Winter season. As of December 2019, the new TSA checkpoint is open, serving both TSA PreCheck and normal security lines.

Operations

The Eagle County Sheriff provides airport security response. The Airport has its own ARFF department with three fire trucks, including two state of the art Oshkosh Striker trucks. The Airport has a full complement of snow plows, snow blowers, and powered brooms for snow removal operations, along with a complete runway friction measuring system. The tower is staffed by SERCO contract air traffic controllers. The airport is building a dedicated de-icing pad so planes do not have to be de-iced on the commercial ramp blocking gates.

Aircraft procedures

There is no standard published ILS approach at the Airport, but there is a special ILS approach, mostly used by the airlines, which requires permission and training from the FSDO. General aviation aircraft usually use the LDA approach, DME, or under VFR. The Airport also has an on-site Beacon Interrogator Radar facility. IFR clearances are given by the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center.

Airport operations

flies year-round to Denver on United Express, and nonstop to Chicago–O'Hare in the summer and winter months. American offers near year-round service to Dallas/Fort Worth, operating as American Airlines or American Eagle in every season except fall. In winter American, Delta, and United Airlines offer service to 11 more cities across the United States including daily flights to Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York–JFK, Newark, Houston–Intercontinental, and San Francisco, select Saturday flights to New York–LaGuardia and Philadelphia, and select holiday flights to Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Of the regional ski resort airports—excluding Denver and Salt Lake City—Eagle County Regional Airport has the second most regular flights during the winter, behind Aspen, CO, and ahead of Jackson Hole, WY.
Winter airline flights are on a variety of aircraft including the Boeing 757, Airbus A319, Boeing 737, and the Embraer E175 or Bombardier CRJ-700 for shorter flights.

Airlines and destinations

Destinations map

Past air service

In the mid and late 1970s one airline scheduled passenger service to the airport: Rocky Mountain Airways, which flew STOL capable de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters followed by larger, 50 seat STOL de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7s nonstop from Denver Stapleton Airport and from Aspen. In the late 1970s through the mid 1980s, Rocky Mountain Airways nonstops to Denver were all the larger Dash 7. In the April 1, 1987 Official Airline Guide three airlines were serving the airport: Rocky Mountain Airways operating as Continental Express for Continental Airlines via a code sharing agreement with Dash 7 flights from Denver, Royal West Airlines nonstop BAe 146s from Los Angeles on Saturdays, and commuter Monarch Airlines operating Twin Otters from Aspen, Crested Butte, Grand Junction and Telluride.
The airport was seeing jets by early 1994: American Airlines Boeing 757-200s nonstop from Chicago O'Hare Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, and New York La Guardia Airport, Delta Air Lines Boeing 727-200s from Salt Lake City, Northwest Airlines Boeing 757-200s from Minneapolis/St. Paul, and United Airlines Boeing 737-300s from Denver. The OAG lists 36 jet flights a week on these four airlines to the airport early in 1994. Air Canada started flying an Airbus A319 nonstop from Toronto Pearson in 2013 by pre-clearing passengers in Toronto since the airport does not have custom facilities. Air Canada dropped the route after the 2017/2018 winter ski season due to relocating its A319's to other U.S. destinations.

Statistics

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