According to Phil Washington, CEO of DIA, the airport now projects it will hit 100 million annual passengers by 2027, and it’s adjusting its future plans based on the new numbers.
Operation 2045, as it’s been dubbed, will attempt to prepare the airport for 120 million (or more) passengers annually over the next two decades as DIA gets ready to mark its fiftieth anniversary in 2045.
The airport has already seen 36.5 million passengers in 2023, and expects to see 78 million by the time the year is over — after initially planning for around 73 or 74 million.
“I think it has surprised everybody,” Washington said of the increasing air travel numbers at an October 4 press conference. “There was a time when we could pick the rush hours for this airport. Now it’s always rush hour.”
By 2045, the plan is for the airport to add four new concourses directly attached to the main terminal for larger processing and gate capacity. “We’re preparing for the immediate time frame with security improvements and things like that, but we’re also looking out to 2045 as well,” Washington explained. “It is our responsibility as infrastructure professionals to prepare for the next generation of passengers that come through here.”
But with talk of expansion and improvements comes the dread of even more construction, which passengers have endured for years as DIA works to renovate its Great Hall, C terminal and security systems.
When asked if the new plan would lead to endless construction, Washington answered, “I don’t think so. The terminal impacts people the most, and the Great Hall…it’s tough constructing something that people are still walking through.”
According to Washington, the Great Hall project is set to wrap up ahead of schedule, starting with the new West Security checkpoint, which will have a soft opening in January 2024 before permanently opening on February 6.
“We have TSA training on that equipment to run it like a Ferrari,” he promised.
Currently, the TSA equipment at DIA gets about 150 people through security per lane, per hour. That will increase to 250 with the new technology at the West Security checkpoint, according to Washington.
Dave Laporte, deputy chief operating officer at the airport, noted that multiple people will be able to take off their shoes and put their luggage in bins at each lane of the new checkpoint. Additionally, new technology will allow for remote viewing of scanned luggage, leading to more screeners than lanes.
TSA’s updated identity authentication software will also use facial recognition, Laporte said, which should speed things up for everyone. Future improvements that will potentially automate luggage screening are planned as well, which will help eliminate the need for a TSA agent to examine each piece of luggage and free agents up to only deal with problem luggage or items that software can’t determine or process as flyable.
The new checkpoint will have seventeen lanes and be evaluated for a few weeks starting February 6, 2024, at which time the North Security checkpoint will close for renovation. That location will eventually reopen as a new “East Security” checkpoint. Washington expects that work to take eighteen to 24 months from start to finish.
“It stands to reason that we will have worked out the kinks,” he said Wednesday, noting how the project is essentially the same as the completed West Security updates.
Other airports already have many more screening areas, according to Washington, but Denver wasn’t designed that way — making renovations and security, in general, much trickier. “It’s like renovating your house while you’re still living in it,” Washington said, “because we cannot close this airport obviously.”
One potential issue that could be contributing to longer wait times at security, according to the DIA CEO, is that the authorized headcount for TSA agents at the airport is smaller than what it was in 2019. The number sat just over 1,100 and is now 941. Washington said Wednesday that he raised the issue to TSA Administrator David Pekoske.
“What we talked to the administrator about was, ‘How can that be?’” Washington remembered. “The question that I posed to the administrator was, ‘What is going into your model?’”
According to Washington, there are plans for Pekoske to meet with the twenty largest airports in the United States and discuss agent allocations for each one. Washington acknowledges that security wait times are at the top of people’s minds.
“The wait times are very, very important,” he assured visitors.
Another issue at the airport recently has been train breakdowns, which have caused nightmarish hubbubs numerous times over the past year for passengers trying to go from security to their gates. “One of the big vulnerabilities for this airport is the train,” Washington said. “It’s operational 99.5 percent of the time, is what my operations folks tell me. But when it goes down, it’s chaos.”
DIA is working to fix the problem by ordering new cars for the trains, according to Washington, which will come in next year. Solving air conditioning issues that have been reported on existing cars is also a top priority, along with adding additional doors to train platforms to help with capacity problems.
“We see light at the end of the proverbial train tunnel,” Washington joked.
For Operation 2045, DIA is attempting to tackle the train problem head-on by planning to attach the four new concourses directly to the security area and Great Hall, so they can be accessed merely by walking, rather than by train.
The goal is to add the concourses in phases — starting with adding two at the northern end of the airport and then adding two to the south.
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A rendering of what DIA could look like in 2045.
Catie Cheshire
When all is said and done, DIA estimates that there will be a total of 100 new gates added.
“We will extend the tents to the airport office building and have a processing center where airlines can have ticket counters, where we can have additional security areas,” Washington said Wednesday. “Through that processing center, people can walk to their gates.”
Washington predicts that airlines will be quick to fill those new spots, considering the 39 gates completed in November 2022 were all spoken for long before there were ready for operation. And there’s already competition for the last new gates DIA can add — eleven in Terminal C.
“We haven’t even started designing them yet and the airlines have already called dibs,” Washington said.
DIA won’t leave the current concourses neglected, according to officials, and it’s also made plans for a consolidated rental car facility with automated transportation to and from the airport. Management is addressing cars in other ways, too: by working with the Denver Police Department to curb car theft.
Washington said there has already been nearly 400 vehicles stolen from DIA lots this year.
“One stolen car here is one car too many,” he asserted. “We want to acknowledge how much hardship that is, for people who travel and come back and their car is gone. We fully acknowledge that. We are doing all we can to harden our parking areas and our parking lots.”
To do so, DIA will install fifteen new High Activity Location Observation cameras by Thanksgiving. It’s also making sure people who don’t need to be at the airport aren’t coming there at night.
DIA policy states that anyone who doesn’t have official airport business (ticketed passengers, employees, Westin hotel guests or those waiting for a passenger on a flight due in or out within four hours) isn’t allowed on the premises between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.
While the rules have always been DIA’s policy, they managed to grab the attention of several people this week after Denver City Council member Shontel Lewis posted about it on social media.
“Just curious as why one would need to show their boarding pass when arriving on the @RideRTD Aline in order to access the airport?” she tweeted Tuesday, October 2. “I never seen this when parking or taking a shared ride. Anyone experience this?”
Washington said Wednesday it is not DIA policy to have officers check boarding passes, but everything else that’s required is standard procedure at other airports and has existed for years.
“It’s always been around,” he said.
A DIA spokesperson told Westword that the policy is intended to make sure the only people at the airport during these later hours are those who actually need to be there.
Washington admitted that it’s currently rough to be at DIA because of the ongoing construction, but he reaffirmed the need for the work — adding that his belief is it’s the best course of action for the future of Denver’s airport.
“We ask that the public bear with us as we retrofit this airport,” he said. “I’ve been around a lot of construction sites. This is a construction site, this airport. I mean, we are building and we’re retrofitting but the alternative is to do nothing and have people stacked up in this airport with outdated facilities.”
