Is founded by a group of businessmen at Gunnison in late 1980 to provide scheduled services to ski resorts and to Denver and Montrose with a fleet of 3 Fairchild-Swearingen Metro IIs. Airline employment in 1981 at President James Huff Jr.’s fledgling stands at 36 and enplanements for the first full year are 18,846.
In 1982-1983, new markets are opened at Albuquerque, Cortez, and Durango. Another Metroliner is purchased and enplanements in the latter year reach 61,799.
In April 1984 nonstop Albuquerque to Colorado Springs flights begin, following transfer of the company to the latter point. Former Continental Airlines official William Mueller becomes president/CEO, the fleet is increased by two more Metro IIs, and a marketing agreement is signed with Continental Airlines on July 15
Operations continue apace in 1985 as the workforce reaches a total of 175. Destinations visited from Colorado Springs and Denver include Rapid City and Pierre, South Dakota; Casper, Rock Springs, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, via Riverton/Lander; Gunnison, Montrose, Durango, and Cortez in Colorado and Farmington, New Mexico.
Enplanements total 118,942.
The fleet by 1986 includes 10 Metro IIs. During the latter year, the company becomes a “Continental Express” feeder partner of the major at Denver and Albuquerque. AMetro II, with 17 aboard, goes out of control while landing at Stapleton on December 1 and runs off the runway into a patch of mud; no injuries are reported.
Largely as a result of its new code-sharing affiliation, passenger bookings swell to 157,326.
Flight 2286, a Metroliner with 2 crew and 15 passengers and en route from Denver to Durango, Colorado, on January 19, 1987, crashes 8 km. to the E of the destination from an initial approach that is too steep (nine dead). It is later reported that Capt. Stephen S. Silver had taken cocaine the night before the flight.
During the spring, Continental Airlines shifts its “Continental Express” Denver operation exclusively to Rocky Mountain Airways. Trans-Colorado attempts to hub on Albuquerque alone, but the market is not there. After a three-month try, the small regional ceases operations in July and leases out its Metroliners to other operators until it is liquidated.
World History
