UA777DEN -
Before you throw your next hissy fit, please read THOROUGHLY my post. The post to which you are referring said that West Pac couldn't make it work for many reasons, COS not being the gold mine they had hoped for was only one. That having been said, I would like to address your various comments:
W7 moved to DEN in the hopes of capitalizing on a percieved larger market. By the time they made this move they were already in the midst of financial ruin. They had also acquired a bad reputation and were losing customers left and right. Once in DEN, UA matched their fares and drove them out of business for good. There time in DEN was brief and at the tail end of their life.
As for CO moving out of DEN - they too were in desperate financial times and were suffering miserably at DEN, thanks to United and Frontier. Closing DEN was one of the things they did to survive as an airline. If they hadn't closed their DEN hub they might never had made it.
You've touted the three new airlines that COS has lured to their airport, out of three, only two are still operating. Both are in poor financial shape. You hold up Allegiant Airlines, Great Plains Airlines and Vanguard Airlines to show how "well" COS is doing? Vanguard tanked (unfortunately), Allegiant, in their short life, has filed for Chapter 11 once already and Great Plains is all over the map flying little Dork jets, their success remains to be seen but is doubtful given that the government has already, and without a whole lot of hesitation, refused to back a loan to them. Also, Great Plains is having trouble financing some new jets to begin their much talked about new service to the east coast from TUL/OKC. So far, the COS track record isn't looking good. Kind of a magnet for troubled airlines.
As for WN - they may well be able to make COS work. They've been pretty succesful at flying to markets, such as COS, that people would be willing to drive to from a nearby major city. ISP, MHT, BWI, OAK all being prime examples. For what it's worth, however, if COS is #4 on this "list" (that people talk about, yet nobody ever really has posted anywhere) and WN isn't planning on adding any new cities this year, then when does COS look forward to this new service? If it was such a goldmine, wouldn't WN want to move in quick and get some of the $$$$ before anyone else? Also, since 9/11, all bet's are off. Any "words" that were given prior to 9/11, I have to believe, are subject to the conditions of the new marketplace post 9/11.
Delta added a "SEASONAL" flight - that makes perfect sense, given COS relative proximity to some major ski areas. But as you said, it's seasonal. 2 flights on Delta, plus one, still only make 3. How many does DL operate to DEN? Even during the summer, DL operates SUBSTANTIALLY more service to DEN. On widebody jets too. You don't see scheduled passenger service on widebody jets into COS anymore. Those days are long gone. And who else has added any seasonal service to COS? Anyone?.... Anyone?.... Anyone?....
Your 36% increase in traffic can be attributed to the many new regional jets that are replacing mainline service at COS, as one poster has already pointed out. Even with more flights, COS is still down in numbers of passengers. Even so, I don't think that you can look at statistics now and compare them with last year or the year before, given the catastrophic events that drove the airlines to their knees. It stands to reason that nearly any fair sized city would record increases as the airlines attempt to recover and restore service as they are able. 2002 was better than 2001 and 2003, barring a war, will hopefully be better than 2002. And so it goes....
Why doesn't COS offer incentives to gain new service? It works for nearly every other airport in the country. Air Tran has moved into a number of new cities in the past couple of years that offered many incentives. Some have worked, some not. I'll bet if COS had made their airport more financially appealing, they might have gained Air Tran as a new tenant.
I never called any market "crappy". If you can find the word "crappy" anywhere in any of my posts, I will recant entirely and apologize from the bottom of my heart. You are right about TUS, ABQ and FAT. They haven't lured in three financially ailing carriers in the last year. Poor them. Just think of all the unpaid fees they could have racked up when they all three go out of business. So far, COS has only had to write off the Vanguard money owed to them.
Listen, I don't hate COS - I don't really care at all about them. I'm just being a realist. If it were such a goldmine and so lucrative then many carriers would be anxious to fly there. Those that currently fly there don't offer alot of flights for a reason. The market there may be soft for now. Maybe it will pick up. I don't know - I do know there is a reason that Air Tran, Alaska, Mexicana, Spirit, Horizon and Jet Blue have chosen DEN over COS.