Denver on pace to become Southwest's largest hub

"It's on pace to become our largest airport," chief revenue officer Andrew Watterson said during an interview on the sidelines of the International Aviation Forecast Summit here this week. "It's the fastest growing airport in our history."

This summer Southwest peaked at 219 daily departures in Denver, making the airport its fourth largest station. The carrier operates its Denver flights out of the airport's Concourse C, where it controls 24 gates.

Last summer, however, Denver began a $1.5 billion, 39-gate expansion across its three concourses. Southwest expects it will also operate out of the 16 new gates that the airport is adding to Concourse C, Watterson said.

The gate expansion project is scheduled for completion by spring 2021. Concurrently, but with a different contractor, Denver was to be renovating its main terminal with completion scheduled for late 2021. However, last month the airport terminated its $1.8 billion agreement with the terminal contracting company Great Hall Partners amid delays that Great Hall had said would last nearly three years. The airport expects to resume terminal construction early next year.

In response to a Travel Weekly email, Denver airport said Friday that the new gates will be operable once complete, and will not be impacted by delays in the main terminal project. The airport did not confirm that Southwest will get access to the 16 additional gates in Concourse C, saying only that the two parties are in discussions.

Watterson said Southwest expects to fully utilize the 16 new gates as soon as possible after the gates are completed.

Southwest's first priority in the expansion will be to increase frequencies and add destinations between Denver and eastern U.S. cities, Watterson added.

Watterson also provided a broader explanation of Southwest's decision to pull out of Newark, effective Nov. 3. In July, CEO Gary Kelly attributed the decision to a combination of Southwest's disappointing results at Newark and to the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max. Absent the 75 Max aircraft Southwest expected to be flying by the end of the year, the carrier decided to redeploy planes from Newark to Hawaii to facilitate its buildup there.

Watterson elaborated on the carrier's difficulty in Newark this week, explaining that the airport's customer base is comprised mostly of locals flying out of Newark. Conversely, the passengers on Southwest flights to and from the New York metroplex typically are visiting the area rather than originating there.

"So we see with LaGuardia that's where people want to go," Watterson said. "Even though you tell them that Newark is a fine option if you're going to Lower Manhattan. It's got a train, no traffic, it's simple -- people still want to go to LaGuardia."

Southwest will have 37 daily arrivals and departures from LaGuardia as of November. It currently flies up to 20 departures per day from Newark to 10 cities. Frontier announced this week that it will enter Newark in November with plans for 15 nonstop routes, taking over landing slots that Southwest is vacating.