Colorado Springs airport seeing travel surge ahead of Memorial Day weekend

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - A week before Memorial Day weekend--the official start of summer travel--the Colorado Springs airport is already seeing a surge in travelers.

Officials told 11 News despite the smoke in the air, they saw at least a 31% increase in travel throughout the weekend when compared to 2019 levels, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. And this is just the start.

“We’re starting to see an increase of passengers going through the checkpoint over this weekend and we’re expecting the big surge to be this next week, specifically May 25 is going to be our busiest day,” said Aidan Ryan with the airport.

This echos a nationwide trend reported by the TSA. Just Sunday, they reported an increase of 600,000 travelers when compared to the same day Saturday. TSA reported that this number is larger than any travel number that’s bee reported so far in the year.

In Colorado Springs, officials said their surge will begin Thursday, and numbers will likely stay high. Despite seeing a dip in travel when compared to 2022 because of Frontier stopping service, the addition of two more airlines to the airport will likely keep numbers steady throughout the summer.

“We’re going to be very busy this summer, it’s really exciting that we are expecting even more routes to come online in the next couple months,” said Ryan.

She added that the airport is known for keeping wait times short, but with construction happening, travelers should arrive more than 90 minutes before their flight and allow extra time for any unforeseen delays.

Memorial Day is Monday, May 28.

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