Frontier Airlines and the City of Denver

On November 17th, Dave Siegel, CEO of Frontier Airlines wrote a letter to airline employees saying that the company was going to have to make cut backs, including with jobs and cited as one of the reasons, Denver airport landing fees that were up 30 percent over the past three years. The letter said “The cumulative effect of these increasing costs is that connecting traffic is no longer profitable for our airline. We are also faced with escalating taxes and airport charges at Denver International Airport, where operating costs have risen faster than any other major U.S. airport over the past decade.”

The letter prompted Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to fire back defending the city and saying that Frontier’s business model was to blame. Frontier has about 1,000 employees in Denver, so what does Siegel’s letter mean for them? I spoke with Ed Sealover with the Denver Business Journal and I asked him to outline the relationship between the city of Denver and Frontier airlines, going back 6 years when a controversial incentive package was offered to the airline to keep jobs in Colorado.