Denver International Airport



         


Denver International Airport is a major international airport located in Denver, Colorado. The airport is on the northeastern portion of the city.

It ranks among the top 10 busiest airports in the United States and is the largest airport in area in the country. It is a major hub for United Airlines and the operations base of United's low-cost subsidiary Ted. Frontier Airlines, one of the fastest growing discount airlines in the US also uses DIA as their main hub. The airport uses DEN as is its IATA airport code and KDEN as its ICAO airport code. After the airport's runways were completed, but before it opened, the airport used the IATA code DVX, then later assumed DEN and KDEN from Stapleton when it closed.

DIA replaced the old Stapleton International Airport in 1995, making it one of the youngest major airports in the US. It was built by the initiative of Denver mayor Federico Pena, but its construction ran into many problems. The main problem, at first, was that the airport's state-of-the-art automated baggage handling system was prone to failure, throwing suitcases all over the basement of the main terminal. Even though the airport was scheduled to open in 1993, its opening had to be pushed back in order to fix all the malfunctioning systems, and Continental Airlines, which had initially planned to establish a hub at the new airport, backed out.

Nowadays, the main complaint about the airport is its distant location from the city center, necessary to accommodate the airport's vast size (137km²). The airport also charges high landing fees to airlines in order to offset its hefty construction costs. Tickets to and from Denver are very expensive, lessening its appeal as a cross-country hub.

DIA has three midfield concourses. They are spaced far apart, and if the inter-terminal people mover system breaks down, it becomes difficult for passengers to board their flights on time, which has only happened once since the airport has been opened. The basic layout is very similar to Atlanta's airport, except that departures and arrivals are on different levels of the terminals.

During a major blizzard in 2003, the heavy snow tore a hole in the one of the terminal's characteristic white fabric roofs, which were designed to be reminiscent of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in winter.

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Concourses

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Concourse A

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Concourse B

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Concourse C

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