Denver Air to land in Jackson

It’s official now: Denver Air Connection is coming to Jackson.

McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport has been waiting since the spring for the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a new Essential Air Service Provider to come into Jackson’s airport, and that decision was recently made and officially announced on Friday in the terminal at the airport at a press conference.

Steve Smith, the executive director for the airport, said this day is one he’s been waiting on.

“We’ve gone through a lot in the last couple years, and today makes all of that worth it,” Smith said.

The airport itself has had a number of upgrades in recent years including runway repair and extension along with upgrade of the air traffic control tower.

All of that work was in the hopes of bringing are more solid airline into Jackson that could produce more flights with more seats to more destinations.

Jon Coleman, the senior vice president of corporate strategy for Denver Air, was on hand for the announcement.

“This is big for us because it aligns with our corporate strategy of building our own network,” Coleman said.

Coleman said Denver Air has high standards for its services – high standards for themselves and they operate under Title 14 CFR part 121, which is the same set of standards the Federal Aviation Administration holds the large corporations like Delta and American to.

“We generally operate at a 97 percent completion rate on flights, but that’s actually lower than our own standard we’ve set for ourselves,” Coleman said. “I’m a pilot, our CEO is a pilot … everyone at Denver Air who makes decisions for the company is a pilot.

“If we say we’re going to have a flight and you give us money to be on that flight, that flight will take off. We’ve had 100 percent completion rate for three or four months now.”

That completion rate is big for Smith and the crew at the airport as past airlines who have preceded Denver Air have struggled at times to take off consistently and on time.

“You can’t control everything,” Smith said when asked about that. “But when it comes to what they can control, Denver Air has by far the best record we’ve brought into this airport.

“But, you know they all say they’ll have an impeccable record when they come in. The proof is in the pudding, and we’ll see how Denver Air does. But I’m confident in them.”

Jackson Mayor Scott Conger, Madison County Mayor A.J. Massey and Greater Jackson Chamber CEO Kyle Spurgeon were all on hand for the announcement.

They were all gracious to Coleman and Denver Air for coming to Jackson. They all mentioned how it took a team effort to bring Denver Air to Jackson, and that team included U.S. Congressman David Kustoff and U.S. Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn along with state government officials across West Tennessee.

“We base where we want our flights on how many people live within an hour of the terminal, and Jackson and West Tennessee are a good fit for us,” Coleman said. “We’re glad to be here and ready to get started.”

Denver Air will begin its flights on Dec. 1. Coleman said he’d like to start sooner, but the upgrades on the runway are continuing and are set to be complete by Nov. 2.

The jets will have 50 seats on them, and there will be 12 round-trip flights per week. As of now, those flights are all to Atlanta and back, but Coleman is hopeful a request Denver Air and local entities have made to the USDOT to move some of those flights to Chicago will be approved in the near future.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news