Frontier Airlines’ plan to return 6 gates at DIA OK’d by Denver committee

Denver City Council’s Business Development Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved an amendment to Frontier Airlines’ Denver International Airport lease, allowing it to reduce its gates to eight from 14.

“More importantly, this project allows (Frontier) to consolidate future operations and (allows us to) move other carriers around the facility,” DIA’s senior vice president Mukesh Patel told the committee.

The deal now must be OK’d by the full city council.

Freeing up the gates, all in concourse A, will allow the airport to move Delta Air Lines — which has increased its capacity at DIA by 19.3 percent — from concourse C by late spring, Patel said.

Patel said Frontier will reimburse the city for the Delta move to the A concourse, but did not say how much the shift would cost.

It will also allow the airport to make improvements to the concourses — including upgrades to passenger areas and bridgeways — airlines are shifted around, Patel says.

The six-gate reduction, which will be completed in January, returns 10,950 square feet of space to DIA, and lops $3 million off the annual gate-rental fees Denver-based Frontier pays the airport, cutting its bill to $27.4 million, according to documents filed with the city.

The gate reduction is the latest in a series of changes the Denver-based airline has made to “right-size” its operations at DIA, decentralizing from a Denver hub and offering more point-to-point flights.

Frontier held about 11.6 percent of DIA’s overall market share the first six months of 2015, down from about 18.5 percent for the same time period in 2014.

Other airlines have filled the gap and helped to keep DIA’s traffic stable: both United, DIA’s largest carrier, and Southwest, DIA’s second largest, have grown their Denver market share, as have Delta, American and Spirit Airlines.

Frontier spokesman Jim Faulkner told The Denver Post in an Oct. 6 interview that, despite the pullback, the airline plans to grow 10 percent at DIA in the next year.

Frontier’s five-year lease with DIA expires at the end of 2016.

DIA will soon begin negotiations with Frontier and other airlines for the next new lease period that begins in 2017, airport spokesman Heath Montgomery said earlier this month.

Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or @LauraKeeney