Private planes are shown at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. General aviation (non-commercial) accounts for 83% of air traffic at Sardy Field. An April report by aviation consultant Ricondo warns that private aircraft could make up 100% of traffic at the airport if the county pursues Aspen Fly Right’s “Better Airport” plan by not widening the runway or increasing separation between the runway and taxiway.
Editor's note: This story has been updated from its original form to reflect subsequent requests for information clarification from Fly Aspen Snowmass consultant Bill Tomcich.
An aviation consultant’s April report has become more relevant following a recent email from the Federal Aviation Administration that warns of a probable downgrade for the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport’s classification in Airport Design Group III to ADG II if certain projects aren’t completed.
“Once the CRJ-700 aircraft are retired or replaced in airline fleet plans, the airport would be relegated to a general aviation airport serving up to ADG II general-aviation aircraft only,” the Denver-based aviation consulting firm, Ricondo, said in its report.
After nonprofit Aspen Fly Right, a critic of the county’s plans for transforming the airport, published in March its “Essay No. 17” titled “How to finance the airport we need — without FAA grants,” Pitkin County commissioned the firm to analyze the points made in the publication.
Conclusions that the airport would eventually serve general-aviation only, that revenue from the fixed-base operator (FBO) and other commercial passenger fees would suffer or disappear due to the downgrade, and that the airport would approach uncharted territory without an approved Airport Layout Plan as an ADG II airport were less relevant before a June email from the FAA.
In that email, John Bauer, the FAA’s manager of the Denver Airports District Office, said the agency would “terminate” the“modification of standard,” or “MOS,” that allows the airport to limit aircraft wingspan to 95 feet. Other Airport Design Group III airports permit wingspans up to 118 feet, and the FAA has long expressed its desire to eliminate that MOS, among others, at the Aspen airport to allow full access.
On Sunday, Amory Lovins, head of Aspen Fly Right, lambasted the Ricondo analysis. In an email to the Aspen Daily News, he called the potential ADG II downgrade “incorrect and implausible,” saying that Bauer had previously said that the FAA is not “interested in going backwards.”
“Yet Ricondo claims that as a penalty for not letting in more and bigger planes, the FAA would restrict ASE to only much smaller and far fewer planes. Huh? That would leave commercial service dependent just on the CRJ-700 (which its maker and the county’s lead forecaster say will fly for decades more — not a big concern for careful analysts) — but it would also bar 12 types of private jets, cutting business jet flights by 35%,” he wrote. “Such a downgrade would lose 10 times more private flights than the FAA wants to add (starting in 2037) by letting in bigger planes, contradicting its mission to maximize access. No wonder Mr. Bauer dismissed it.”
In the essay, Aspen Fly Right advocates for a “Better Airport” over a “Bigger Airport” by maintaining the MOS and using funds from the FBO, which attends to general aviation — 83% of traffic at the airport — to finance repairs needed at the airport.
The runway is in a critical state, needing a full reconstruction due to subsurface water issues. Airport officials and many community members agree that the terminal is overdue for a major renovation to meet peak travel demands on the security lanes, boarding areas and baggage claim, plus the installation of climate-friendly updates.
The essay posits that FBO funds could finance both terminal updates and a new runway, foregoing the need to continue to accept federal funding and the grant assurances that come with it. The county has estimated a new runway cost at $120 million compared to Aspen Fly Right’s $84 million. Terminal modernization is estimated to cost over $470 million, according to the county.
“($19 million annually from the FBO) can finance a modern terminal and new runway twice over. “Free money” is nice, but if it comes with unwanted strings, we’re also free to decline it and choose to pay our own way from our airport’s new income streams,” the essay states.
Other county-proposed options for financing terminal updates include using Passenger Facility Charge funds, which the 2024 budget forecasts as $983,000 in revenue.
The report came to some conclusions that alarmed members of the Airport Advisory Board — particularly that the “Better Airport” plan would result in the end of commercial service at the airport. That possibility seemed unlikely until the FAA wrote the county that they would yank the MOD, forcing the airport into an Airport Design Group II with its 49-79 foot wingspan limit.
The only commercial aircraft that can serve that limit is the CRJ-700, which is the only commercial aircraft that flies into Aspen now.
Commercial airlines have indicated the Embraer 175 may replace the CRJ-700. But the E-175’s approximate 94-foot wingspan would not fit ADG II standards, meaning the Aspen airport could be without a commercial aircraft to serve it once the CRJ-700s retire.
Bill Tomcich, principal of aviation consulting firm Tomcich Travel and a consultant to the local stakeholder group Fly Aspen Snowmass, works closely with airlines to plan flight schedules to airports.
He said at the Thursday advisory board meeting that there is nothing currently being flown commercially in the U.S. with which the airlines could replace the CRJs within ADG II airports.
United Airlines, operated regionally by SkyWest Airlines, has said in an earnings call that they plan to convert some of their CRJ-700 shells to CRJ-550s, which seat fewer passengers. With their reduced maximum takeoff weight, they could only carry enough fuel for limited distance flights.
Tomcich estimates that the CRJs, as 700s or 550s, have 10-13 usable years left. Aspen Fly Right has long contested that estimate, saying decades are likelier and that the county should not build for wider aircraft when narrower wingspan aircraft exists, although in an experimental capacity. An Aspen Journalism story reported that the retirement of the CRJ-700s was overstated in 2013 studies.
But Tomcich said that a scope clause, which place restrictions on how many and what size of aircraft a regional airline may operate, will force the retirement or reconfiguration of CRJ-700s as regional airline SkyWest has ordered 19 E-175s that are scheduled to be delivered over the next few years.
“There is a scope clause that limits the total number of [51-to-76-seat] passenger aircraft that can be flown. For United, [it is] hard capped to 255 aircraft across all regional operators. And [United Express] was already at that number,” Tomcich said. “In order to introduce these 19 new E-175s that will be coming on over the next three years, they have to remove CRJ-700s with service or convert them to 50-passenger configurations. So it's a virtual certainty that this is coming. And it's now expected to come before the end of 2026.”
Eventually, the CRJ shells will reach the end of their usable life. And the Ricondo report said that would spell the end of commercial aviation at the airport without an ADG II-compliant aircraft for airlines to fly.
“I'd rather see no airport than a general aviation-only airport,” said Jacquelyn Francis, who chairs the county’s Airport Advisory board.
Lovins concurred that Aspen Fly Right advocates for an airport with commercial access.
“Aspen Fly Right favors a thriving, rightsized, full-service airport worthy of our community, with a new runway and doubled-size new terminal, all fitting today's planes as the airlines want,” he wrote in an email. “We suggested a practical way to fund and build that Better Airport. Ricondo’s report seems designed to help staff persuade commissioners to ignore our analysis, and to misinform voters.”
The Ricondo report also posits that the revenue from the FBO, whether privately operated or county operated, would likely decrease in the event of a downgrade to ADG II, limiting the county’s ability to finance runway and terminal repairs without federal assistance.
Without commercial service, the airport could no longer collect Passenger Facility Charges, hindering the county’s ability to pay back the grant assurances, or the promises made to the FAA with the acceptance of more than $160 million of federal money since 1982 — like always having an approved Airport Layout Plan.
The airport is currently on track to submit an ALP to the FAA in September, according to Airport Director Dan Bartholomew. A citizen initiative to amend the county’s Home Rule Charter and force a vote on the widening of the runway/taxiway separation is underway now, with the potential to appear on the November ballot.