“Last month I told you that United was looking to schedule a sixth daily flight to Denver starting in the fall,” Padalecki said. “Later that week Boeing announced it would be late to deliver airplanes and then the next week United notified us that they would probably have to pull back that sixth flight.”

The late deliveries from Boeing will have a ripple effect throughout the airline industry, Padalecki explained, and could also affect smaller airline carriers that buy older airplanes from the larger carriers.

“If we just think about United, those aircraft coming from Boeing were supposed to go to United,” Padalecki said. “So United don’t have those aircraft. Well, that also means United is going to wait to shed aircraft that they were going to phase out.”

Despite the change of plans for the sixth flight, Padalecki said Grand Junction is high on United’s list when it is able to secure those new planes.

“It’s still really good news that they are thinking of us when they get to expand first,” Padalecki said. “It also means we’ll get shifted first if they have to shift.”

So far United has seen strong demand from passengers in Grand Junction, Padalecki said. The airport has had its busiest first quarter ever, she said, which was driven primarily by United Airlines.

“I’m happy to share that we’ve had our busiest first quarter ever,” Padalecki said. “Passenger traffic was tremendous. … we were up in capacity, I think, 4% whereas overall we were up in passengers by 10%.”

Breeze Airways, which added a flight to Orange County, California, from Grand Junction in February helped add some of that capacity, Padalecki said. She also said that American Airlines saw a small decline in the number of passengers in the first quarter.

The number of passengers growing faster than the additional capacity is a great sign for the airport, Padalecki said because it shows airlines that there is demand for the additional seats.

“There is no better sign for airlines than when they add capacity and load factors go up,” Padalecki said. “That math is magic.”

CONTRACT AMENDMENT

The Airport Authority voted unanimously to amend Padalecki’s contract and agreed to a 5% raise this year bringing her salary to $195,002. The board thanked her for the work she did in 2023 and gave a one-time bonus for outstanding performance of $13,000.

The board also agreed to a longevity bonus for Padalecki going forward to “encourage continued high performance and timely completion of critical capital projects,” including the construction of the new runway. That bonus would be $8,800 in 2025 and will increase each year through 2033.