There's new movement on the Aspen airport closure project. Here's what's changed.
On June 24, the Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved moving the ASE terminal project from Schematic Design into Design Development. The Airport Advisory Board recommended the same move on June 18, also unanimously.
This is the phase where the project moves from concept to something a contractor can actually build. The design team will spend the next several months refining parking, gate capacity, passenger amenities, operational functionality, future terminal evolution, and overall architectural character.
The bigger question is ground transportation
For anyone in the valley next summer, the more practical question is how people will actually get here while ASE is closed.
A community transportation subcommittee is contracting services to move people between regional airports and the valley during the closure, April 4 through November 19, 2027. Eagle County, Denver International, and Grand Junction will absorb the traffic. Fly Aspen Snowmass issued a request for quotes in May and hopes to sign contracts this winter.
The goal, according to Aspen One's Chris Miller, is a range of options that work for visitors and locals without defaulting to rental cars clogging Highway 82. County officials have said they'd rather build one coordinated transportation plan than have every business or event running its own separate shuttle.
A few specifics are worth knowing if you're planning around the closure. There will be no parking at ASE itself while it's closed, and some will stay unavailable even after reopening while terminal construction continues through 2029. Small sections of the Brush Creek Park and Ride may serve as temporary rental car parking, with last-mile shuttle connections into town still being worked out.
United is already building its schedule around it
The clearest sign of how serious this will be is what United is already planning at Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), which will carry most of the redirected traffic.
Today, EGE sees 25 weekly United flights, three daily from Denver plus two weekly each from Houston and Chicago O'Hare. Next summer, that grows to 63 weekly flights from four hub airports. Denver service doubles to six flights a day. Houston and Chicago O'Hare move from twice weekly to daily. Los Angeles, already served daily most of the year, picks up that same daily service through the summer for the first time.
Five of those nine daily flights are scheduled to land in the evening and depart the next morning. That timing makes the logistics easier. Ground transportation only needs to run during two predictable windows a day, morning and evening, instead of being spread out around the clock.
Other major construction is happening at the same time
The closure overlaps with several other major builds already underway in the valley, including Lumberyard affordable housing across the street from ASE, the Armory Hall renovation, and the Lift One corridor project in Aspen. County Manager Kara Silbernagel has said the goal is to treat all of it as one coordinated effort, drawing on lessons from COVID and the Grand Avenue Bridge project in Glenwood Springs.
The real estate takeaway hasn't changed since [earlier post on the 2027 closure]. It's just more concrete now. Summer 2026 remains the last season before the valley runs several major infrastructure projects at once.
Pitkin County will host a community town hall on July 14 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Limelight Aspen to go over runway reconstruction and closure planning in more detail. Questions can be submitted in advance.
