DAYTON, Ohio — Daily nonstop service to Denver, Colo., is returning to the Dayton International Airport in September.
The news from United Airlines is great for travelers looking to go skiing in the Rocky Mountains or revelers looking to hang out in Denver’s bustling downtown area. But the reinstatement of the pre-pandemic service was met with excitement from local businesses as well.
Major Dayton-based companies, such as Woolpert and CareSource, plan to use the direct flights to get to Denver meetings and expand operations to other points out west. And it could be an important service for the United States Air Force, which has major bases and other resources in both Colorado and southwest Ohio.
What You Need To Know
- Nonstop daily service between Denver and Dayton is set to resume Sept. 29 at Dayton International Airport
- Denver is the farthest west for any direct flight travels out of Dayton
- Landing the flight was a community partnership focused on supporting business development in the Gem City
- The effort was part of a statewide program to incentivize airlines to bring more direct flights to Ohio
When the flights begin Sept. 29, Denver will become the farthest direct flight offered from the Dayton airport.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday that the round-trip service “strengthens Ohio’s connection to the rest of the country and world.”
“Restoring and attracting new air service to Ohio opens new opportunities for economic growth while linking other communities to our companies, people and culture,” he added.
Working to better connect Dayton to the world
United Airlines is bringing back the Dayton-to-Denver flight as part of its United Next plan. The airline announced 35 new flights, a dozen new gates, and three new clubs in Denver.
Mark J. Weithofer, United’s managing director of domestic planning, described the new flight to better connect Dayton to the airline’s global route network through hub gateways in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and now Denver.
For Dayton-area travelers looking to travel farther west, the airline offers four nonstop flights from Denver to Hawaii. It also has two flights to Alaska and several others to cities along the west coast.
That’s significant for companies like CareSource, for example, which has employees in 47 states, including Alaska and Hawaii.
Expanding air access to its Dayton headquarters is more important than ever, said Richard Topping, the company’s chief legal officer. He noted having more direct, competitively priced flights for customers, partners and employees is crucial to CareSource’s expansion.
“Quite simply, we need more flights in Dayton—our business depends on it,” Topping added.
Headquartered in Dayton since 1911, Woolpert is one of the leading architecture, engineering and geospatial mapping firms on the planet. They provide data to the Department of Defense, the Army Corp of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Google, to name a few.
Beyond being one of the best, they’re also among of the fastest-growing firms in that industry, according to Shane Imwalle, the company’s chief strategy officer. He said the company has grown from about 500 employees to about 2,000 in the last five years.
Today, Woolpert has 60 offices on four continents and some of the biggest cities in the world. It acquired a pair of Colorado-based firms — Jviation and Data Cloud Solutions — in 2020.
Its largest office remains in Dayton, but next on the list is Denver.
While the pandemic may have introduced people to work-from-home culture and Zoom calls, there are some things you can’t do on a screen the same way you can face-to-face, Imwalle said.
“You can’t teach culture and show people how we do things through screens,” he added.
Imwalle couldn’t give a specific number, but he said he wouldn’t be surprised if Woolpert team members would make five, 10 or more trips through Denver International Airport each month.
Right now, a trip from Denver to Dayton takes at least five hours one way with one connecting flight. “And that’s if the connection is on time,” Imwalle said.
“You’re almost losing a day on each end,” he said. “You can try to respond to emails on your phone, but you’re not nearly as productive when you’re in an airport and in an airplane as when you’re sitting in an office.”
The direct flight on United Airlines’ 76-seat Embraer 175 (or E-175) aircraft will drop the travel time to roughly 2:45.
“Direct flights save us a lot of time, which to a services firm also means saving a lot of money,” he said.
JobsOhio bringing air service back to the Buckeye State
The decision to bring direct service to Denver back to the Gem City isn’t a result of United’s market data alone. It took a push from a range of public and private partners across the region to make it happen.
Key partners included Dayton International Airport, the Dayton Development Coalition and the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. A major player is JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development corporation. It operates the Air Service Restoration Program.
Started in 2020, the program works with communities across Ohio to increase the number of destinations served at commercial airports.
It has several elements, but a major one is the revenue guarantee it offers an airline to start a new service. For domestic flights, the match is up to $1 million over the course of the startup period, based on how the flights perform sales-wise.
There’s a major focus on airports in smaller markets, said Terry Slaybaugh, JobsOhio’s vice president of sites and infrastructure.
Air service at Dayton International Airport is between 65% and 70% of pre-pandemic figures, per JobsOhio.
“There’s a shortage of aircraft right now and a shortage of pilots, so there’s very limited opportunities to get new air service especially for smaller markets like Dayton,” said Slaybaugh, a former director of aviation for the city of Dayton.
JobsOhio works with community partners to get the financial backing to support the guarantee. In Dayton, CareSource and Montgomery County committed to make up 20% of the performance-based match, if needed. The startup period is one year.
Debbie Lieberman, president of the Montgomery County Commission, called the additional service an effort to support business growth but also tourism travel.
More flights could mean more jobs in Ohio
Dayton’s newest flight marks the 29th created through the Air Service Restoration Program.
To date, the incentive has helped the state win more than 500,000 new airline seats, or an additional 5% to overall capacity, Slaybaugh said. He mentioned a couple “big wins” internationally for the state in recent months. He listed Aer-Lingus’s recent Dublin, Ireland-to-Cleveland service as one of the most significant because of the number of business connections between those cities.
Next month, British Airways will begin direct flights between Cincinnati and London Heathrow Airport.
Expanding domestic and international travel service is important to business, Slaybaugh said. But he stressed it’s also a significant quality-of-life consideration for the people who decide to work for those companies.
Bringing more flights is essential to not only keeping businesses in Ohio but also luring them to the state, Slaybaugh said. He noted projects like bringing Intel to Licking County — “the largest single investment in Ohio” — come down to companies being able to travel easily, whether it’s for business purposes or for fun.
“If we’re going to attract companies like that from the coasts, we’ve got to develop the same type of air service here in Ohio,” Slaybaugh said.