Denver plans for all eventualities

Opened on 28 February 1995, Denver International was the 10th busiest passenger hub in the world and the fifth busiest airport in the US in 2008.

Built on 53 square miles of prairie to the east of Denver and the Rocky Mountains, the airport's success may be explained partly by geography. Denver is strategically located at the centre of the US; its relatively isolated position means there is no other major airport within a 500-mile radius, providing the hub with a five-state catchment area.

Originally designed to handle 50 million passengers a year, passenger numbers exceeded 51.2 million at Denver in 2008. While traffic fell away in late 2008, levels have remained relatively robust.

"July 2009 was our busiest month in history with a total of 5,109,342 passengers, a 2.2 per cent increase from the 5,000,505 passengers who used the airport during the same month in 2008," says Kim Day, aviation manager at Denver International Airport. "This bucked the trend of declining passenger numbers that started in the fall of 2008. In August 2009 4,877,212 passengers travelled through the airport: an increase of 2.3 per cent over the same month in 2008. These are all positive signs for the future."