Among the many updates shared with business owners and community members at the winter outlook meeting hosted last week by the Steamboat Springs Chamber, speakers advised lodging staff to warn guests to pre-book airport shuttles due to a shortage of seats expected this winter season.

The Preparing for Peak: Winter Lodging and Industry Outlook session on Oct. 19, part of the chamber’s free Business Education Series, included rapid-fire updates from community leaders sharing anticipated winter 2025-26 lodging trends, tourism forecasts, airline and airport developments, transportation updates and Steamboat Resort news.

Yampa Valley Regional Airport Director Tinneal Gerber told the audience that due to changes with some of the transportation companies and struggles with Uber and Lyft services, airport officials are expecting a shortage of ground transportation seats available to and from the airport.

“Our year-over-year seat comparison with our change from Steamboat Express to Emerald Express has decreased significantly,” Gerber said. “As lodging companies, make sure your passengers know they need to pre-book. It’s going to be a priority this season. If there is any of the lodging companies that would like to do courtesy vans, please come talk to me.”

“Uber and Lyft are definitely not as prevalent out there; we do struggle with them from time to time,” Gerber added, noting Uber and Lyft are more successful at the rural airport on Saturdays during the height of the winter season.

Uber and Lyft struggle with being able to operate effectively at the airport due to a limited amount of drivers who spend more time providing rides in Steamboat Springs, a smaller flight schedule at the rural airport and the driving distance to Steamboat, Gerber said.

The change in shuttle companies and differences in licensing for whether a shuttle service can provide walk-up or only prebooked rides is impacting the current passenger capacity, according to Brad Moline, owner of the new Steamboat-based shuttle company Emerald Express Transportation. Moline, who started the company in June, said his service is helping to fill some of the ground transportation needs after Steamboat Express lost a contract with the airport in the spring.

Currently Emerald Express books entire SUVs or vans for guests, but Moline said the company has a Colorado Public Utilities Commission hearing scheduled for December for an expanded license. The company hopes to gain a license to add walk-up passenger and common carrier level of services, moving beyond their current “private limo” service.

In September, engineering and planning teams reached 60% design status for an expansion to the airport that would add four new gates with jet bridges to the west of the current terminal building, Gerber said.

With the planned addition of a second floor, jet bridges will be physically possible. Boarding bridges have been requested by airline companies because it is more efficient for loading with less required staffing than tarmac loading and less walking time for passengers, Gerber said. The five existing gates will remain tarmac loaded into the future.

“Allocation of the new gates and jet bridges will be determined based on airline operational needs, existing use agreements and federal requirements that ensure fair and nondiscriminatory access,” Gerber explained. “The airport will work closely with all commercial carriers to assign facilities in a manner that supports efficient operations, passenger convenience and balanced air service growth.”

The current expansion design is expected to be completed by early 2026 with construction scheduled to start in May 2026 and continue through March 2028. Now moving into the final design phase, the project also would include a full-service restaurant upstairs in a new boarding area and an expanded outbound baggage carousel.

The planned construction will add 57,000 square feet pushing the total airport terminal size to 128,000 square feet. The Weitz Co. from Denver is the construction management company for the almost two-year construction project that will be staged to allow continued full operation at the airport.

The airport director said she is pleased that Southwest Airlines will add a Remain Overnight Flight similar to what United Airlines now provides. Southwest plans to offer that during March to August 2026 so that the flight crew flies in at night and leaves the next morning, which can increase flight connectivity and decrease possible delays of morning departures, Gerber said.

Gerber reported the airport has significant equipment capacity to clear snowy runways quickly. The airport’s snow removal equipment fleet includes three rotary brooms, three rotary blowers, three loaders with blades, two plow trucks and one motor grader.

“Those two big blowers can clear our 10,000-foot runway in 15 minutes,” Gerber noted. “We have very minimal runway downtime because of the equipment that we have.”

Gerber noted the airport has added aircraft rescue and firefighting personnel and moved to the Index C classification of airport rescue and firefighting year-round. The fire department staff was increased to seven full-time and two part-time employees who are EMT trained.

The rescue staff is federally regulated based on the size of incoming aircraft, Gerber explained. Index C requires two fully capable firetrucks and two fire officers on duty during commercial airline operational hours typically 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in Hayden.

The airport director said 2024 marked the highest ever passenger count at the airport at 469,908 passengers. That annual passenger count then dropped by 11% during 2025, and projections show airport passenger levels will stay flat this year equal to last year’s volumes, Gerber said.

During 2019, the airport served 216,436 passengers, which dropped in 2020 to 181,920 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are looking at over 450,000 passengers that come through that airport now on an annual basis, so that’s a significant increase from what we used to see,” Gerber said. “That is largely due to Southwest coming in with their planes year-round starting in December 2021.”

Gerber said the year-round competition from Southwest Airlines drove down pricing from United Airlines, which encouraged more regional residents to fly out of Hayden.

The airport property has hosted a number of improvement projects in the past seven years including an expanded apron in 2018, new fixed-based operator facility in 2019, new gate 5 and vestibules in 2020, a new solar array in 2021, new de-ice pads in 2022, carwash in 2023, and development kick-off for a 30-acre aviation business park in 2024 on the east end of the runway.

So far this year, the airport has largely completed a taxiway A blast pad runway extension to provide additional pavement for safety for planes touching down as well as an A2 runway connector to give the pilots more maneuverability. The airport also replaced all taxiway lighting with more efficient LED bulbs and resurfaced the full length of the taxiway.