ST. GEORGE – SkyWest Airlines announced Friday new United flights between St. George and Denver beginning June 6. SkyWest will provide once-daily Denver service utilizing the 50-passenger Canadair Regional Jet 200. To accommodate the new jet schedule, SkyWest’s United Express service to Los Angeles will discontinue April 9. Denver flights will be available for purchase beginning Feb. 16 at www.united.com.
“We’re excited to continue to provide SkyWest’s hometown with access to the world’s largest airline network through United,” SkyWest Airlines President and COO Chip Childs said. “This new service opens a new gateway for St. George travelers to Denver and the more than 120 United destinations beyond.”
Richard Stehmeier, St. George Municipal Airport manager, said the new flights came about through the use of the $550,000 grant given the airport from the federal government last year.
One of the purposes of the grant is to cover start-up costs for one flight route, Stehmeier said, which was accomplished in this case. Along with a $100,000 grant from the City of St. George, the remainder of the funds will be towards marketing the new route.
With the announcement of the new route also comes an end to regular flights to Los Angeles. Marissa Snow, a spokeswoman for SkyWest, said certain flight routes are based on demand, and that the Denver route showed much more promise than Los Angeles had.
The Airline said Flight schedules will be ideally timed to provide travelers with the maximum connection opportunities in Denver. The once-daily flights will be scheduled Monday through Sunday as follows:
Denver to St. George
- Depart: 1:30 p.m.
- Arrive: 3:15 p.m.
- Frequency: Daily
St. George to Denver
- Depart: 3:40 p.m.
- Arrive: 5:18p.m.
- Frequency: Daily
United customers flying out of St. George will also accrue Mileage Plus miles, and with more than 400 daily departures in the Mile High City, United makes it easy to get anywhere travelers want to go.
Customers may begin booking flights Feb. 16 at www.united.com or by calling United reservations at 800-UNITED (1-800-864-8331). Ticket fares are always available at www.united.com.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @MoriKessler
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.
Seeing how most of Skywest’s United training is moving to Denver from LA, of course it shows more promise. While you’re at it, why not let the city help pay for it with those grant funds they have been sitting on for over a year now.
Hey, Keeping Our Freedom, it said the city is putting in a hundred grand on this.
We’re not moving ahead in connectivity if we simply trade one destination for another. I would have preferred that the LA route stay in place if we could have only DIA or LAX. Wasted grant money and wasted effort. Let SkyWest pay the freight unless they will commit to keeping a new route running for a least a few years and not closing down old routes.
After the Dixie State name change issue and the Owner of Skywest saying that he would not give money to the college it the name Dixie was removed myself and a growing number of people will NOT do business with Skywest.
Anyone who won’t do business with SkyWest over the name change issue are being silly and tilting at windmills. Won’t matter to Skywest, or to anyone else. Anyone has the choice to support the Shuttle or the gas companies by going to Vegas if they choose to do so. My wife regularly flies to Oakland to visit her ailing sister. She used to shuttle to Vegas and fly SW to Oakland. Now she flies to Oakland via SLC with Skywest for about 20 bucks over the other price, saves time, and doesn’t have to be in a cramped shuttle for a couple hours. The new airport is so quick and convenient and not loaded with drunks in the security lines.
We all pay our money and make our choices, and you are welcome to do as you choose. Isn’t it great having options since we live in a country that allows them?
This just shows that the St. George Airport is floundering. Basically throwing darts in determinning route selection is nothing more than a gamble. Neither I or any of my neighbors and friends were polled as to their route prefferences. The significant price difference to fly out of St. George combined with the exceedingly limited flight destinations/schedule do not make flying out of St. George a viable choice for the majority of patrons. In all but a minority of cases, the premium of flying out from St. George for the average flyer is hard to justify. Corporate travellers are not as concerned because the majority of their tickets are naturally paid for. The cost of the shuttle or a tank of gas to and from Las Vegas is a vast cost savings over flying out of St. George. And unlike a previous comment, my family and I have fown out of Las Vegas for dozens of trips over the years and do not find the lines their filled with “drunks” and find that the relatively short commute, vastly lower prices and schedule choices a positve experience. The attempt of positive spin on this article is very apparent but as somone already stated, the airport is not expanding, it is trading one route for another.