Eagle County airport welcomes slate of new flights this week
4 new flights are among several changes EGE has made for winter 2025-26
Zoe Goldstein/Vail Daily
The Eagle County Regional Airport launched its winter schedule this week, featuring four new nonstop flights. The airport will see over 30 commercial flights per day during peak times in winter 2025-26.
The inaugural American Airlines flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, landed around noon Thursday. Passengers were welcomed into the airport with smiles, cupcakes and balloons.
The increased service comes on the heels of EGE’s biggest year yet for enplanements, the number of passengers boarding flights at the airport. By the end of November, the airport had already seen a record number of annual enplanements.
“We still have all of this week and next week to blow last year’s record way, way out of the water,” said Josh Miller, the airport’s deputy director of aviation.
The momentum is expected to continue in 2026.
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“Our seat capacity keeps going up,” said David Reid, the airport’s director of aviation. “We’ve talked about the lack of snow around here, and people still come out to this area through the holidays regardless. But we’ll need to see snow in January and February if we want to keep the momentum.”
As the airport gets busier, it is adding flights and making other updates to accommodate the increase in traffic.
New flight details
The Charlotte flight seats 128 passengers. It will run daily through Jan. 5, then take a month off and return for daily service from Feb. 12 through April 6.
“That’s a huge win for us for a brand-new flight,” Miller said.
Typically, a new flight will start with a limited number of days to test the market at the airport.
Recruiting new air service is “a long process,” Reid said. “It takes many years of building that relationship with a given airline on a given route.”
The airport landed the Charlotte flight after about six years of working with American Airlines, and the destination has been on the EGE Air Alliance’s list for about 20 years, according to Eagle County Manager Jeff Shroll.
“When you see a new flight like this, it reminds you of the number of years of that relationship building before you even see it,” Reid said.
To ensure the airline recoups its investment, the Charlotte flight is on a minimum revenue guarantee, a payment the airport provides to cover any losses as passengers become familiar with the new route.
“The better the flights do, the less of an MRG you pay out,” Reid said.
Flights typically start to move away from the minimum revenue guarantee once approximately 70% of seats are consistently filled, depending on fare prices.
Core Transit provided the funds for the Charlotte flight’s $301,000 minimum revenue guarantee, which came from the 0.5% sales tax the transportation authority collects.
On Saturday, the airport’s three other new flights will make their inaugural voyages.
United Airlines will provide nonstop service to Washington, D.C., on Saturdays from Dec. 20 through April 6. A $248,000 minimum revenue guarantee supports the flight.
Delta Airlines will add two flights this winter, neither of which is on a minimum revenue guarantee.
Delta will fly daily to Minneapolis from Dec. 20 through Jan. 5., then on Saturdays through March 28. Delta will also fly to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturdays from Dec. 20 through Jan. 5.
“Delta is starting to build their footprint a little more, which is nice,” Reid said.
The EGE Air Alliance will continue its local flight rebate program this winter, offering a $100 flight rebate to any Eagle County resident who travels on a minimum revenue guarantee-supported flight.
Infrastructure upgrades
To prepare for more traffic this winter, the airport has made several infrastructure upgrades.
For many passengers, the most noticeable will be two new TSA exit lanes that allow passengers to exit the airport without waiting for a TSA agent to lift the metal grate that formerly covered the exit.
“It will be a big customer service improvement,” Miller said.
“Sometimes …TSA gets hung up in the checkpoint, trying to get people in, and they’re so absorbed in that … we’ll have a flight land 10 minutes early and they’re not ready for it, so then people walk down there and stand there for three or four minutes,” Miller said.
The airport engaged the vendor to calculate a flow rate to ensure the gates could handle the exiting traffic even at peak times and settled on two exit lanes. As the airport grows, more lanes can be added.
The exit lanes will be operational full-time, with an automated security system. The entire project cost about $500,000.
“As long as we maintain them, there is no real shelf life. They should last quite a while,” Reid said.
To meet the growing demand as more flights arrive, the airport also turned Gate 5 into a full-time gate.
“That should help with some of our busy times,” Reid said.
The entire airport schedule is available at FlyEGE.com.