{"id":2454589,"date":"2020-02-14T18:08:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T01:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspens-popularity-leads-to-flight-delays\/"},"modified":"2020-02-14T18:08:01","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T01:08:01","slug":"aspens-popularity-leads-to-flight-delays-leading-into-holiday-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspens-popularity-leads-to-flight-delays-leading-into-holiday-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen\u2019s popularity leads to flight delays leading into holiday weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Airplanes line up for takeoff on the tarmac at the Aspen\/Pitkin County Airport on Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Aspen appears to be in high demand as a Presidents Day Weekend destination, with commercial and private flights delayed more than two hours Friday at the Pitkin County airport.<\/p>\n

And with snow predicted for Saturday through Monday, airport officials expected the flight delays to continue throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a peak, peak weekend for us,\u201d said John Kinney, airport director. \u201cExpect to see ground delays through Saturday if not Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ground delays at Aspen airport Friday were running two-and-a-half hours, meaning that flights were being held at their points of origin for at least that long before being allowed to take off for Aspen, he said. Friday\u2019s delay \u2014 which began at 30 minutes and gradually increased \u2014 came in spite of warm, sunny weather in the Aspen area.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The delay) is due to volume only (Friday),\u201d Kinney said.<\/p>\n

Ground delays Thursday at Aspen airport were running about 30 minutes thanks to snow and flight volume, he said. The airport handled 300 flights in and out Thursday, about 50% more flights than the facility handles on a busy day, he said. The breakdown was about 80% private planes and 20% commercial.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for the Aspen area Friday afternoon effective from Saturday evening through Monday afternoon. The storm was expected to drop between 10 and 15 inches of snow and possibly more in higher elevations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravel could be very difficult to impossible,\u201d according to the NWS watch. \u201cPatchy, blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility, especially on ridge tops and mountain passes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The watch area covers Aspen, Snowmass Village, Steamboat Springs, Vail and Crested Butte.<\/p>\n

The airport may run out of parking spaces for private planes, with 47 jets parked on the tarmac as of Friday afternoon, Kinney said. The airport can park between 75 and 90 planes depending on their size before passengers must be unloaded and the planes flown elsewhere to be parked, he said.<\/p>\n

Aspen is the third-busiest airport in Colorado behind Denver and Colorado Springs, Kinney said.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airplanes line up for takeoff on the tarmac at the Aspen\/Pitkin County Airport on Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Aspen appears to be in high demand as a Presidents Day Weekend destination, with commercial and private flights delayed more than two hours Friday at the Pitkin County airport. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2454589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 15:23:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}