REGINA - Members of the business and tourism sectors in Regina are bouyant about the arrival of United Airlines daily direct flights to Denver.
United Express flights commenced on Thursday with a flight from Denver that landed in Regina that night, followed by the first morning flight from Regina to Denver on Friday morning.
The flights are using 50-seat CRJ200 aircraft and the early indication is that the initial flights have been almost fully booked, despite the "elbows up" campaigns and much-publicized reports of U.S. travel boycotts by Canadians in retaliation to President Donald Trump's tariffs. .
The word that the United flights appear to be well-received, at least so far, has simply added to the excitement of local officials who were at the welcome event for United in the airport's departure area on Friday.
“From a tourism perspective, we are so excited to have this flight come back and forth from here to Denver,” said Sandra Jackle, President of the Regina Hotels Association.
“Denver is the sixth busiest airport globally, so the connections are huge. We're going to be able to get people here easier, in and out, so it's going to be great for tourism, for conferences, for events, bringing people to town, boosting the local economy.”
Jackle believes this direct route will benefit Regina in landing major events and conferences.
“We bid on tons of events. We're bidding on lots of international events. We want sports teams to come here, we want conferences to come here, and just making that connection easier to get to Regina is going to be helpful with this Denver flight, with it being so connecting to the world.”
Jennifer Johnson, Deputy City Manager for Communications Service Regina and Tourism, also believes this route will enhance Regina’s ability to attract events.
Johnson said Tourism Regina “bids on a number of events to come here. Events, conventions, trade shows, sporting tournaments and this flight means just more people from around North America can get here more easily. So it makes us more successful in those bids and attracting events like that to the city are great for the economy.”
Johnson said Regina has “really good facilities here for hosting and we also are a small enough community that when people come here for events and they can travel around, they can experience some of our attractions. It's really easy to get to restaurants, it's easy to go to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum for example and then they can still do their sporting tournaments.”
She expects to see more Americans come to Regina, and adds this route is “a really good connector for Americans to go hunting and fishing in northern Saskatchewan. Our province is amazing to explore and so this is a great stopping place and also a great connecting point.“
“It's a big deal. I can't really overstate it,” said Chris Lane of Economic Development Regina.
His organization was among several in Regina that pushed for reinstatement of both the Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul direct flights to the airport. The Denver route in particular had been absent from Regina airport for about a decade.
“We know that there's lots of opportunity there and I think it's important that the old criticism that Regina and Saskatchewan might be hard to get to or hard to get from, those days are quickly disappearing and this is a great example.”
Lane said Economic Development Regina is taking advantage of the new route right away. Starting on Tuesday, Lane says they plan to head off on a trade delegation to Denver for several days of meetings and business-to-business relationship building.
“This is a collection of business leaders mostly and private business owners as well and so we've got about 24 people and we've got three days of really robust programming,” Lane said.
“We're meeting with economic development organizations from the state and the city level there as well. We're doing tours of research facilities, commercial facilities in the sectors that we share a lot of common ground with with Colorado. Saskatchewan and Colorado trade 200 million dollars in goods and services annually, so it's an important market. Canada is Colorado's top import partner and top export partner, so the idea that there's an existing business relationship there is solid and they're really excited we're coming.”
Lane said this shows that “engagement in a time of economic uncertainty is really important for an export-based economy like Saskatchewan and so we're proud to do that work.”
Among the factors to make the Denver route a reality was a $3 million revenue guarantee by the province. The Regina Airport CEO James Bogusz said that in addition to the money from the province, the Regina Airport, the Regina Hotel Association, and a number of business partners also contributed additional incentives.
"On top of that, we've done quite a marketing campaign in southern Saskatchewan to create awareness for many people here to know that United is back in town," Bogusz said.
The Denver flights are the latest in a string of good news announcements for Regina airport, following last year's launch of WestJet direct flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul as well as recent news of WestJet direct flights to Halifax.
"And I think this is part of the recovery from COVID," said Mark Burton, Regina Ward 4 councillor.
"Now we're starting to see the recovery and the economy take off, and we're now going to start seeing more of these connections. So again, I'm very excited to see the return of United."
