United Airlines is adding weekend flights between Portland and Denver this summer, providing a link to the airline’s western hub.
The airline said the Saturday and Sunday flights will begin June 8 and run through Labor Day.
Flights will leave Denver on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8 a.m., arriving in Portland at 1:54 p.m. The planes will return to Denver the same day, departing Portland at 3:05 p.m. and landing in Denver at 5:40 p.m. local time, according to Zachary Sundquist, assistant director of the Portland International Jetport.
Sundquist said Denver is one of eight hubs that United operates around the country.
The seasonal service will provide a link to travelers going to Colorado or looking to connect to United flights to the West Coast, he said.
The Denver market has proven to be successful in seasonal flights that Frontier Airlines offers to the city, Sundquist said. According to the jetport’s latest annual report, Denver was the 11th most popular destination for travelers.
“This provides more one-stop options” to travelers heading west, he said, as well as flights that will bring summer travelers from the West Coast to Maine.
In a statement, United said that Denver is the airline’s fastest-growing hub and had more than 500 daily departures from the airport last summer. Last year, the airline said, it added more than 50 daily flights and 13 new destinations from Denver and is launching new international service from Denver to Frankfurt in May.
United also said that the new flights are part of a change in its Denver schedule to provide more morning flights to the East Coast, aimed primarily at business customers.
“With the enhanced schedule, we’ll reduce the amount of time customers will spend waiting at the airport and provide better options to customers arriving on flights from smaller markets to get to destinations east and west of Denver,” Steve Jaquith, vice president of United’s Denver hub, said in the airline’s statement.
Portland International Jetport recently announced that it set a record for the number of travelers flying into and out of Portland in 2018, eclipsing the 2 million mark in early December. Sundquist said the airport is still making a final tally of the total number of passengers for the year. The previous record of 1.86 million passengers was set in 2017.
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