Somehow I missed this, but JonNYC flags that Denver airport is talking about their next international flight add being Emirates to Dubai.
According to the airport head, “Our next (new) direct flight will likely be Dubai with Emirates.” It was surprising to hear because,
- Emirates hasn’t made the announcement yet, they’re getting scooped.
- This was offered in comments at the Lufthansa Airbus A380 inaugural.
Sounds like he let the cat out of the bag here! And it also looks like they’re aggressively pursuing Ethiopian Airlines for one-stop service via Europe to Addis Ababa.
We are also looking at the continent of Africa, to Ethiopia, with a direct flight.
The Ethiopian service would be subsidized by the airport. And it’s more non-stop competition to Europe for Lufthansa. Add this to a lot of new Emirates capacity (and Emirates is a United partner), JonNYC points out that together this could cost Denver its Lufthansa A380:
wacky opinion alert: Watch that LH A380 go poof if this were to come to fruition.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) May 8, 2025
Denver airport is terrible for those flying in and out of the city. It’s far from downtown. TSA is a mess. The train between concourses breaks down all the time. But it’s a good connecting airport, United Airlines has tons of feed, so most of the big long haul service adds are from United partners. Southwest is weak, and this buries them further. Plus hurdles to jump through in getting to and through the airport are less significant for ultra-long haul flying since they represent a smaller percentage of the total trip.
Ultimately it’s not clear why they’d spend big to subsidize service to Africa that isn’t non-stop, since they already have plenty of service to Africa that isn’t non-stop, including on United and Lufthansa, on Turkish which recently started Denver service, and with new Emirates service. The Ethiopian flight is described as ‘direct’ and wouldn’t be able to make it non-stop to Addis in any case.
I remain skeptical that ultra long haul on “usual routes” is economically viable (as opposed to “subsidy viable”). Who is really looking to fly Ethiopian out of Denver? I’m guessing just about nobody. And surely, from a pure profit/loss standpoint, there is no need for nonstop service to Dubai from Denver. The tiny number of people who want to travel from Denver to Dubai each day have a myriad of easy connections they could take. And the small number of passengers travelling east of Dubai from Denver already have dozens of connections through cities that themselves have actual origin/destination traffic, which would surely make such service more economically viable. It seems like there is still a lot of non-economic factors driving airline service from non-Western international flagship carriers. At least the declining cost of jet fuel will help reduce the losses such flights will incur.
Maybe Denver should actually expand its terminals and fix the security mess before adding more flights. I seriously don’t understand why nobody cares to fix or nobody is competent to fix the mess that is Denver’s airport. It’s literally the worst major airport in the US.
So LH downgrades their A380 service to B777 or A330? I think of A380 service as only making sense on super-high-traffic routes.
I disagree that tsa is a mess at Denver. Yes, they have been moving security around, but it is fast and efficient to get through.
United 1k out of Denver. Stop with the exaggeration on security and trains, it’s getting old and is mostly off base.
@Raphael — Yes, LH’s a380, 747, or a340, is probably too much capacity as-is. Like, how are they filling that thing anyway… Also, I’ll admit that this is nitpicking, but please recall that Lufthansa does not operate 777 for passengers, only cargo. So, yes, LH could and should probably downgauge from the a380 to their a330, a350, or even 787, especially with the reduced demand, and potential new competition on this and many US routes for them.
“The Ethiopian service would be subsidized by the airport. And it’s more non-stop competition to Europe for Lufthansa.”
Somewhere I missed where a flight to Ethiopia is more non-stop competition to Europe for Lufthansa, unless Ethiopia has changed continents!
@WHS As written in the article, it will be one stop in Europe to Addis Ababa since it’s too far to fly, especially with both cities being a mile high.
San Diego-based here and love the international flights out of Denver. Last year flew both TK and UA into DEN. Loved that intl arrivals is not as crazy as LAX, SFO, IAH. Only thing I don’t like is the loooong walk from Intl arrivals over the bridge to customs/immigration in the main terminal building.
Emirates makes sense as it’s a partner with UA. Same for LH and Turkish.
Where did the Southwest comm
Why is Southwest weak at DEN? It’s one of their largest connecting airports.
I love it when TK or EK follow the other so that a US airport gets both airlines to provide them service. Adding ET into the mix makes for all the more competition of relevance to my flying interests and I welcome that too.
Emirates – at last!! New way to get to SE Asia with only 1 stop on a high quality carrier. Can’t wait.
Your opinion of DIA is very outdated. It’s certainly not the best airport in the country, but they’ve made improvements. Trains operate at a 99.7% in-service rate. Hardly “breaking down all the time”. They’ve completely changed one security line which is very now very efficient, and the other side is about to move as well. As TSA Pre and Clear, I can’t remember the last time I waited more than 10 minutes to get through. I leave my house 1.5 hours before my flights and have never once been close to missing a flight. And yes, it’s pretty far from downtown, but at least it has a good and reliable train service that operates every 15 minutes. Better than most major US airports and similar to what you see in European and Asian capitals where the airport isn’t right in the city.
Denver is great for last minute award seats to London, Frankfurt, and Munich. NRT and IST are also often available if you’re flexible.
I welcome any and all nonstop flights from Denver to Europe, Asia, or anywhere overseas. DH and I carefully strategize about where to go based on business award flight availability, and with UA so very proud of their nonstop overseas flights (DEN-NRT at 250k, for example) and LH’s looming award flight increase, ANY new competition or alternatives are welcome. It doesn’t matter to us if LH has an A380, but it does matter to us if we can get award seats on it for an amount of miles that we can realistically accumulate. TK? Already booked in October. Emirates? Never flown them, but we’d love to try—ditto Ethiopian. Let’s go!
TSA isn’t a mess. I went through Denver a few days ago (Pre) and it only took 4 minutes. Brand new facilities.
Lufthansa’s A380 service was never meant to be permanent. Its only to run through September.
Emirates has been discussed for a number of years and supposedly was close to announcing DEN back in 2016/2017 but due to politics was retracted and this was before the UA partnership. DEN’s geography, distance and market demand make it somewhat tricky as well. The only planes viable are the 777-200LR or the A350. Both of which are in limited supply.
Ethiopian doesn’t seem feasible, would require a fuel stop and doesn’t provide much value beyond what TK and EK already offer. Seems like a vanity project more than anything.
Lastly, nobody here should take Phil Washington seriously. He has no aviation background and has little say in air service direction
@WHS – ethiopian would stop in europe
Where ET is flying to in Europe is key to that flight, but the author doesn’t say.
Depending on where that is, it may make sense for DEN to spend some money to get it going.
Gar Bear, are you from Denver, girl? Because your opinions are so outdated 🙁
As a Denver girlie, I love DEN. The new security is fast and lux. The new concourses are gorgeous. And you can stuff your pie hole with so much great food from incredible restaurants.
I’m a bit late to the party, but just found this article, which has several flaws. In order of appearance:
1) Paragraph 4: The Ethiopian (ET) service to Denver (DEN) would not be “subsidized,” as this term implies commercial unviability, like a city bus or America’s Essential Air Service program. Rather, the airport would offer temporary incentives to get the service started, like many airports do
2) Paragraph 4: ET service to DEN would not be competition for Lufthansa (LH), or any other European carrier, because ET would almost certainly not get 5th freedom rights to serve Europe from DEN. All Addis Ababa (ADD) to North America flights stop in Europe enroute, and ET has no 3rd freedom rights on any of these services, let alone 5th freedom. When ET served ADD-Los Angeles (LAX) and stopped at Dublin (DUB) in both directions, they still had no 3rd, 4th, nor 5th freedom traffic rights at DUB (IOW, only ADD-LAX pax v-v, plus 6th freedom connections at ADD; no DUB pax in any direction)
N.B.: in 2023, Abiy Ahmed, PM of Ethiopia, opened talks with Malta (MLA) about operating 5th freedom flights between MLA and North America, so this may still come to fruition. Even so, ET DEN-MLA flights would hardly constitute European “competition” to LH, because ET would compete with LH only on the tiny DEN-MLA market itself
3) Paragraph 4: If Emirates (EK) adds A380 service to DEN and LH downgrades their A380 back to the A350, so what? I guarantee that DEN would rather have EK and LH to MUC on any aircraft than no EK and a LH A380 to MUC. Besides, the A380 is only planned for 30 April-30 September
4) Paragraph 5: Rife with opinions, some unfounded. Every airport has its bad security days, but the relatively new West security is generally extremely efficient, and the upcoming new East security promises to be similar. The train to the concourses operates over 99% of the time, which is hardly breaking down “all the time.”
5) Paragraph 5: What does Southwest have to do with Emirates flying to DXB, and how would an EK flight to DXB “bury them further?” By supporting United Airlines connecting flights to DEN? That’s a bit of a stretch
6) Paragraph 6: Again with the word “subsidize,” but more to the point, why are we switching topics to ET DEN-ADD service? Isn’t this article about EK DEN-DXB service?
These ‘incentives’ are subsidies, literally by definition.
You say ‘so what’ to a downgrade from an a380 to an a350 but that’s wiping airline seats off the board, which means driving up prices. If you aren’t adding net seats with new service then what are you really doing?
“ET would almost certainly not get 5th freedom rights to serve Europe from DEN. …When ET served ADD-Los Angeles (LAX) and stopped at Dublin (DUB) in both directions, they still had no 3rd, 4th, nor 5th freedom traffic rights at DUB (IOW, only ADD-LAX pax v-v, plus 6th freedom connections at ADD; no DUB pax in any direction)”
This is false. Ethiopian operated Los Angeles – Dublin with local traffic.
@Username Redacted,
Re EK to DEN: Yes, the A350 is in “limited supply,” but that won’t last long as they have over 60 on order, plus 20 788s, which I think have the legs to operate DEN-DXB. Even if they announced DEN today, service wouldn’t likely start until S26.
Re ET to DEN: As demonstrated by the previous LAX-ADD schedule, western North America is impossible to serve without either A) giving up on the “required” 0600 arrival to meet the pan-African 0800 departure bank, or B) spending a second night on an airplane or in an airport or hotel. ET pax on LAX-ADD did the latter by departing LAX at 23:30 and then departing DUB at 18:30, so two nights on the same airplane.
Currently, ET goes with option B. DEN pax in the summer can take a redeye to IAD at 23:59, wait ~5.5 hours, and catch the 11:00 ET flight to ADD (so the first night on a UA narrowbody and the second on the ET 777). DEN pax in the winter must take a daytime flight and spend the night in ORD/IAD/ATL etc. to catch a morning flight to ADD. Under option B, a DEN-ADD nonstop would require an 08:00 departure from DEN, so the required fuel stop would make that a 06:00 departure at the latest, which eliminates every connection possible except maybe redeye flights from Alaska or Hawaii. Also under option B, all North American Ethiopia-bound pax arrive in the very early morning and have a long day before normal bedtime.
So how about option A instead? Time the flight for a late afternoon departure out of DEN: pax bound for Ethiopia can comfortably connect from the entire Pacific and Mountain time zones, spend only a single night on an airplane, land in ADD in the late afternoon, then catch a domestic flight home or just go to dinner and then to bed in Addis Ababa.
Pax bound for points beyond ADD spend a comfortable night in a hotel near ADD airport, so they still have a second night enroute, but they get to refresh before their shorter intra-Africa flight. Such a schedule is troublesome only for those who can’t easily enter Ethiopia for visa reasons. For me, I’d much rather spend the second night sleeping at an airport hotel in Addis Ababa than on a UA 737 the first night and arrive at my final destination shattered.
Re ET 5th freedom: correction accepted. ET was granted 5th freedom traffic rights on LAX-DUB. My apologies; my mistake.
Re Adding net seats with new service, I stand by my assertion that DEN would prefer EK 788 DEN-DXB + LH 359 DEN-MUC over LH 388 DEN-MUC only. While this represents an overall decline in seats, the airport is more concerned with increased service options than increased prices on existing service. And, FWIW, DEN told me about 20 years ago specifically that they would prefer two smaller aircraft to FRA and MUC rather than the 744 that LH operated to only FRA at the time so that they would have more destinations.
This would explain why DEN has an incentive program ( the “Air Carrier Incentive Program”) that accrues greater benefits to new airlines and new destinations.
Thanks for correcting me about ET’s 5th freedom.