Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport

Summary

The Walker Webcast: Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport

Date: May 28, 2026
Host: Willy Walker
Guest: Phil Washington, CEO, Denver International Airport (DEN)

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Overview

In this episode, Willy Walker sits down with Phil Washington, the CEO of Denver International Airport (DEN), to discuss the incredible growth, operations, challenges, and future ambitions of the third largest airport in America. With over 82 million annual passengers and ambitions to become the busiest airport in the world, DEN is a massive economic engine and innovation hub. The conversation covers infrastructure expansion, operational excellence, challenges of growth, security, sustainability, and the strategic vision for DEN’s future—including energy independence and the possibilities of space travel.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Scale & Economic Impact of DEN

• DEN as Colorado’s Largest Employer: With 40,000+ workers and 10% of the state’s GDP generated by airport activities, DEN is a central economic force.
• Rapid Passenger Growth:
  • 2025: 82.4 million passengers (01:29)
  • 100 million forecast by 2030, if not sooner (01:47)
  • Target: 120–125 million by 2045
• Quote — “We are the fastest growing airport in the country, maybe the world.” — Phil Washington (02:18)

2. Major Challenges: Scaling Infrastructure

• Primary Challenge: Adapting outdated design (built for 50 million) to accommodate explosive growth (up to 125 million).
• Focus: Modernization, safety, and expansion, especially creating multimodal transportation infrastructure (02:18–03:29).

3. The Unique Advantage of Land

• Vast Land Holdings: 53 square miles, comparable to Miami or San Francisco (03:37). This allows for future expansion—runways, terminals, cargo operations.
• But Not Without Challenges: Managing an expansive perimeter (36 miles of fencing), including wildlife and occasional security incidents (04:09–06:55).

4. Security & Safety

• Recent Incident: A person breached the fence, entered a runway, and died after being struck by a plane. This triggered internal and NTSB investigations, highlighting ongoing security evaluation (05:02–06:55).
• Safety First: Focus on rapid incident response and mental health support for staff involved in traumatic events.

5. Operational Excellence

• Runway Reliability:
  • Six Runways, Longest in North America: 16,000 ft, allows any aircraft to land (03:53–04:03).
  • Low Cancellation Rates: Just 0.85% cancellations vs. 1.5% in Atlanta and 1.85% in Chicago. Attributed to runway design, maintenance, and snow removal efficiency (07:24–08:22).
  • Quote — “Our snow crews can actually plow a runway in about 15 to 20 minutes.” — Phil (08:22)
• Best-in-Nation TSA Wait Times: 6–10 minutes on average, thanks to investment in advanced security technology and biometrics (10:03–12:21).
• Tram Reliability: Trams down 130 times/year for an average of 4 minutes, 99.903% uptime—but aiming for 100% redundancy (12:21–14:38).
• Quote — “When the train is down, the airport is eerily quiet. It’s scary, actually.” — Phil (13:45)

6. Expansion Plans & Constraints

• Terminal and Concourses:
  • No plans for a Concourse D (would add strain to the only train line). Last expansion is C West (11 new gates by 2025–26).
  • Next: Expand main terminal north, add four future walkable concourses (15:11–17:28).
• Runway 7 Plans:
  • Environmental pre-construction underway, cost $700M–$1B per runway (28:10–28:26).
  • Need justified once traffic surpasses 100 million passengers per year (29:13–31:12).

7. Financial & Revenue Structure

• No City Profits: Federal law prohibits diverting airport revenues to city coffers (25:25–26:17).
• All Revenues Reinvested: Self-funding through aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenues—mainly parking (51,000+ spaces, possibly expanding to 70,000+), concessions, and other business partnerships (19:24–21:29).

8. Parking, Rental Cars, and Transit

• Parking Capacity: Growth anticipated as passenger numbers rise, but also focused on increasing transit usage—the A Line rail (20:56–21:29).
• Consolidated Rental Car Facility: Under construction, 16–18,000 spaces, with plans for employee parking and EV charger installations (21:35–22:35).

9. Energy Independence & Sustainability

• Blackouts & Redundancy: Recent Excel substation outage heightened focus on alternative energy and energy independence (22:54–23:11).
• Ambitious Plan: 31 private-sector proposals for making DEN the world’s first energy-independent airport, considering solar, geothermal, and small modular reactors (SMRs) (23:11–25:15, 46:59–50:21).
• Quote — “We would be the first airport in the world to be energy independent.” — Phil (24:03)

10. Sustainability & Environmental Management

• Water Management: Snow is melted and water captured and recycled, including de-icing fluid (32:41–32:57).
• Ongoing Regulatory Compliance: Heavy investment in environmental impact studies—sometimes costing millions for projects on previously undeveloped farmland (29:13–29:49, 51:01–51:34).

11. The Hidden Side of DEN

• Airport Services: Onsite holding cell and a morgue for emergencies and passenger deaths (33:25–33:43).
• Therapy Dog Program: Largest in Colorado, designed to help reduce travel anxiety (34:11–35:07).
• Managing “Plane Rage” and Emergencies: Regular law enforcement and EMT incidents, but overall rate is manageable due to professional teams (35:37–36:48).

12. Culture, Coordination & Airline Relations

• Ecosystem Management: 40,000+ workers in various capacities across multiple organizations—managed by fostering a culture of safety and excellence across the airport (37:03–38:44).
• Airline Relations: Regular meetings with station managers; fast, direct communication and after-action reviews for continual improvement (39:04–39:55).

13. International and Strategic Growth

• Hub Strategy: “Gateway to the West” vision—aggressively targeting direct international routes, particularly to Africa and Asia (41:03–44:17).
• Quote — “We need to put Denver on the map... and not just have it as a flyover city.” — Phil (43:40)
• Space Travel Vision: DEN as future launch/landing pad for space travel; close ties to Colorado’s Spaceport (44:51–45:47).

14. Infrastructure and the Politics of Growth

• Tech Constraints: Recent Denver City Council bans on data centers raise concerns about attracting high-growth ventures (46:21).
• Philosophy: Phil sees DEN’s responsibility as preparing the infrastructure and “hoping the politics will follow.” (46:45–48:09)
• Quote — “When I think about space, I think about what do we need to do at Denver International Airport to prepare that facility... with the hope that the politics will follow.” — Phil (46:59)

15. The Never-Ending Environmental Process

• Pena Boulevard Bottleneck: Ongoing frustration over slow environmental review for road widening—critical as airport capacity doubles (51:00–53:36).
• Quote — “The fact that Pena has not changed in 31 years, it’s about time that we do something about [it].” — Phil (52:45)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On DEN’s Growth:
  “Having to make sure that we can accommodate this tremendous growth is probably the number one thing... And also doing it safely.” — Phil Washington (02:18)
• Land as an Asset:
  “We can land any aircraft in the world right here. The land, 53 square miles, gives us an incredible advantage...” — Phil Washington (04:09)
• On Resilience:
  “Our snow crews can actually plow a runway in about 15 to 20 minutes with the equipment that we have.” — Phil Washington (08:22)
• Vision for Energy:
  “We would be the first airport in the world to be energy independent.” — Phil Washington (24:03)
• Spaceport Ambitions:
  “I absolutely believe that we are in the best position of any airport in this country to have space travel... When I think about space, I think about what do we need to do at Denver International Airport to prepare that facility with the hope the politics will follow.” — Phil Washington (44:51, 46:59)
• On Airport’s Impact:
  “Is Phil the most important person in the state of Colorado?… I will tell you, you’re damn close.” — Willy Walker (54:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening / Size & Stats – 00:00–02:18
• Infrastructure Challenges – 02:18–03:29
• Land & Runway Advantages – 03:29–05:02
• Security Incident (Fence Breach) – 05:02–06:55
• Operational Excellence (Runways, Snow, Maintenance) – 07:24–09:58
• TSA Wait Times and Technology Investment – 10:03–12:21
• Tram/Train Uptime & Redundancy – 12:21–14:56
• Expansion (Gates & Concourses) – 15:11–17:28
• Fuel Costs & Revenue Model – 18:21–20:46
• Parking, Rental Cars, Transit – 20:46–22:35
• Energy Resilience & Independence – 22:54–25:15, 46:59–50:21
• Financial Structure & Future Planning – 25:25–27:56
• Runway 7 Environmental Process – 28:10–31:12
• Snow & Water Sustainability – 32:22–32:57
• Behind the Scenes: Morgue & Therapy Dogs – 33:25–35:07
• Culture & Airline Coordination – 37:03–39:55
• International Growth Strategy – 41:03–44:17
• Space Travel Potential – 44:45–46:59
• Infrastructure vs. City Politics – 46:59–48:09
• Pena Boulevard Bottleneck & Environmental Review – 51:00–53:36
• Closing Thoughts on DEN’s Economic Impact – 54:50–56:01
• Anecdotes about Baggage Mishaps – 56:15–57:27

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Conclusion

The episode is a deep dive into what makes Denver International Airport a national—and potentially global—leader in aviation. Phil Washington emphasizes the value of DEN’s immense land, focus on safety, operational efficiency, sustainability ambitions, and vision to shape the airport’s and region’s economic and infrastructural future. Despite infrastructure and political bottlenecks, DEN is prepping for tremendous growth, both in the skies and potentially, one day, in space.

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Transcript

[Willie]

Welcome, everyone. Thank you to those investors and team members who are here today for the Walker and Dunlop Investment Partners LP meeting. Greatly appreciate that. And to you, Phil. Thank you for coming in. It's an honor to have you here. We're going to start recording the Walker webcast and we're going to play this as a Walker webcast next week. And so I guess I ought to do an official welcoming to Phil Washington, who runs the Denver Airport Authority after having run the Los Angeles metro system for many years and prior to that running Denver rtd. And so Phil was in Denver, then went to la, was extremely successful down in la, and then came back to Denver. And we are the great beneficiaries of Phil running. A couple things that are just really noteworthy. First of all, it is the largest employer in the state of Colorado. It is 10% of Colorado's GDP is at Den. 10%. By far the largest contributor to the state of Colorado's annual GDP is the Denver Airport. It is the third largest airport in the United States of America. It is quickly growing to become number one with 84 million passengers in 2025. Correct on that.

[Phil Washington]

82.4.

[Willie]

82.4. There we go. I want you to correct me on my stats here, Phil. So 83 million passengers last year, very focused on 100 million and going well beyond 100 million. 100 million by 2030.

[Phil Washington]

If not sooner.

[Willie]

If not sooner takes getting to 105 million annual passengers to surpass Atlanta as the busiest airport in the world.

[Phil Washington]

Correct. Right.

[Willie]

So that's a growth trajectory that most airports, most companies would love to have in front of it. What's the biggest challenge right now as it relates to expanding DIA for from 84 million annual passengers to 125.

[Phil Washington]

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's great to have you, Willie. It's wonderful to be here with all of you. I think our biggest challenge is making sure the facilities match the growth. We're talking about an Airport at Den that was built and designed, designed and built for 50. Right. Million annual passengers. And so having to make sure that we can accommodate this tremendous growth is probably the number one thing. And. And also doing it safely. Safety, obviously, is our number one priority. But. But this growth that we're seeing, not just at Dan, I mean, Dan is the fastest growing airport, I think, in the country, but also making sure that we are multimodal and making sure that it's not just about passengers. Obviously that's our number one priority, but we Want to branch out into other sectors and hopefully we can talk a little bit about that. But the biggest thing is the modernization and keeping up with that growth, I would say.

[Willie]

So a couple things that you've done recently, first of all, to give people a sense you have a competitive advantage because of the land you have.

[Phil Washington]

Yes.

[Willie]

So the airport itself is as large as the city of Miami or the city of San Francisco, are two reference points as relates to how much land you have. You have six runways, one of which is 16,000ft long.

[Phil Washington]

The longest in North America.

[Willie]

The longest in North America, which allows any size jet to land and land comfortably.

[Phil Washington]

Correct.

[Willie]

They're also wider than most landing strips. Correct?

[Phil Washington]

Yes, yes.

[Willie]

So all that comes into being an advantage in what way?

[Phil Washington]

Well, as you said, I mean, we can land any aircraft in the world right here. The land, 53 square miles gives us an incredible advantage in terms of development, in terms of things that we can do and what we can accommodate with regard to development as well. It also allows us to expand our cargo operation, which is, I think, one of the huge, huge potential avenues to bring more cargo into Dan. So this land thing is incredible. It really is. And there are some challenges with that as well, having all that land. I mean, you would be shocked to know that we've got a lot of wildlife out there. We've got.

[Willie]

You've got people who jump the fence.

[Phil Washington]

Yes, we do. We do.

[Willie]

Are you, can you talk about that at all, or is that something because of what happened? You just have to. I mean, I don't want to ask you a question that you can't. I mean, if you say I can't talk about it, that's fine.

[Phil Washington]

No, I can talk about it. I mean, you know, I can talk about what we've said in public.

[Willie]

To anyone who doesn't know. An individual jumped the fence at DIA two weeks ago, ran out onto the Runway and got hit by a Frontier flight that was taking off for Los Angeles. Was killed. It has been deemed to be a suicide.

[Phil Washington]

Correct.

[Willie]

So it's deemed that he did it on his own fruition and was there purposefully, if you will, anything.

[Phil Washington]

Well, I mean, it, it, you know, it bears mentioning that we have about 36 miles of fence, of perimeter fence, source. When we talk about the land that we have, it's a lot of it. Unfortunate incident. You know, we are assessing our, you know, security right now. We always do that. Anyway, NTSB National Transportation Safety Board has an active investigation on it. But it was unfortunate. I'm very, very concerned. I was Very concerned about the passengers on that flight and concerned about our operations and maintenance people who had to clean all of that up. And we had that Runway back open the next morning at 10am after working all night to make sure that we clean that Runway up. So safety obviously is number one. We're still working on this. We're talking to Frontier Airlines, which is our hometown airline here in Denver. We have a very, very close relationship with all the airlines, but especially the hometown airline here. But very unfortunate incident.

[Willie]

Does that engine, can it be repaired? Does it have to be replaced?

[Phil Washington]

I am actually talking with the CEO of Frontier next week. I hesitate to say it can be repaired. I mean, it's a tough thing, but these engines are very resilient, you know what I mean? And there's a lot of repair that goes on with the engines and the aircraft. So our hope is that it can be salvaged.

[Willie]

So six runways, very wide, very long, gets you to a flight cancellation rate that is way lower than any other major airport. You're at 0.85% of flights canceled on an annual basis last year. To give people a reference point to that, Atlanta was at about 1.5% of flights were canceled last year and Ord or Chicago was at 1.85%. Almost 2% of their flights were canceled last year. What does that give you as well as the airlines that fly in and out of Den as it relates to, you know, consistency, cheaper to operate. There seem to be a lot of derivative effects from having that low a flight cancellation rate. And it's not like the weather here is any better than it is in Atlanta or in Chicago. So is that all based off of the length and the width of the, of the landing strips?

[Phil Washington]

I think it's some of that and it's our people too who keep runways open, who maintain runways. We close the Runway in the summer every year just to do Runway maintenance. And so when we talk about just maintenance in general, that is a huge part of it. And you mentioned the winter. We know snow here at this airport and you know, it's amazing that our snow crews can actually plow a Runway in about 15 to 20 minutes with the equipment that we have. And so all of that plays into it. So you've got Runway maintenance, you've got our ability to increase non aeronautical revenue that keeps costs low for airlines. There's something called cost per employment. We are very low or sort of middle of the road with the large airports around the country. That means a lot because we keep airline costs low in terms of how we handle our business and handle maintenance and financial management as well. Last year, from all three credit rating agencies, we got the highest rating in the history of Denver International Airport. And so all of those things kind of play into how we are attractive to airlines to come in and out of Denver International Airport. So all of that plays into it.

[Willie]

That's gotta help you with your borrowing cost and your $7 billion of debt.

[Phil Washington]

That's right.

[Willie]

We talked a little bit about the ability to grow the airport. You also talked about passengers. TSA wait times at DIA are shorter than they are at any of the other major airports by quite some bit. Your average wait time right now is 6 to 10 minutes on your TSA lines. That stacks up to 15 to 20 minutes at all the other majors and some even 20 to 25 on the TSA. How'd you pull that off?

[Phil Washington]

Well, a couple of things and great on the stats.

[Willie]

That's why I know one or two things about aviation. I also love it. And also I also happen to live at dia. I mean, I'm in and out of that airport all the time. So all this stuff is a big interest of.

[Phil Washington]

You know, I point to a couple of things. One, we invested heavily in the new security equipment and we wanted to get it in very as quickly as we possibly could. And so the biometrics that we have there, the various, the four stations, if you will, that we had three or four stations that we have in one lane has taken us from about 140 passengers per hour per lane to over 200 per hour per lane. And that is a big deal. So I point to the technology that we have brought in on the security side, and we want to do more of this. We think we can do more in terms of AI with security and different things to move folks through much, much faster. So we were very, very proud of the fact during the shutdown that we did not have these issues in Denver that you saw in Houston and some of the other places. But it's the investment that we have made in security technology that has gotten us there, and we're going to do more of that. When you look at the east and west security checkpoints, we are going to have 12 additional lanes on Level 5 as well as we build out that entire terminal, or great hall, if you will. But I point to the technology that has helped us keep those wait times low.

[Willie]

So people get through the security and then they go down the escalator and they get to the trams.

[Phil Washington]

Yes.

[Willie]

And so the trams went down over your last fiscal year, 130 times. Now that. When I first read that, Phil, I was like, whoa, that's a lot. And then I read a little bit further. They went down 130 times, but for an average time of four minutes, which gave you a redundancy rate or the network being up 99.903% of the last fiscal year. Okay. So everyone in the telecom industry used to always say five nines, that you needed your network to be 99.9999% reliable for it to actually be a network that you would be able to go and actually sell. You're. You're at 1 9. Yeah, but that's still damn good.

[Phil Washington]

It is, but I want 100%. And look, you know, I. We need redundancy at Denver International Airport for the trains. Now, my operations folks tell me that all the time. Hey, Phil, we got 99.86. Uptime for the train. When that train is down is chaos at the airport. I mean, it's. It's.

[Willie]

We got 160,000 people a day using it, right?

[Phil Washington]

That's right. That's right.

[Willie]

160,000 people a day using it.

[Phil Washington]

It's incredible. The airport, when the train goes down, the airport is eerily quiet. You have been in a quiet airport. It's scary, actually.

[Willie]

Yeah.

[Phil Washington]

So, you know, we need that redundancy. And I was talking to one of the Mayor, Federico Pena, Secretary Pena, not long ago, and, you know, I was joking with him and with others that we must atone for what I consider the original sin of dinner. Sin. The original sin was not having redundancy for that train. And we want to atone for that by having redundancy.

[Willie]

Redundancy in another tram or redundancy in walkways.

[Phil Washington]

We're looking at either or both or actually the train itself. How can we have redundancy from A to B, B to C. And so we have been working on that.

[Willie]

And are you going to go from C to D? Because as someone who spends a lot of time in that airport when I'm at gate 92, yes.

[Phil Washington]

That's a long way.

[Willie]

And I don't mind walking long distances. It's a long way. How further can you go east, west, before you go north, south?

[Phil Washington]

Well, a couple of things. We don't want to do a Concourse D. And the reason we don't want to do a Concourse D is that is more strain on the train. And so for us to get to 100 million, there is an expansion that we're doing on Concourse C. West Sea West. That is the last expansion that we can do on the existing concourse infrastructure. Right. We've already expanded all of the other concourses. In the last five years we have built and opened 39 new gates. That's like another airport. That's like Kansas City. Anybody from Kansas City? Yeah, that's, that's like Kansas City.

[Willie]

We're in Denver. We don't like people from Kansas City. I know they got a good football team.

[Phil Washington]

Well, they got good barbecue ribs too. But, but so the last expansion we can do is concourse C West which we have already started. That is 11 additional gates. That gets us to 100 million. Beyond that we've got. Well, we actually have forecast for 120 million by 2045. What we want to do is expand the Concord, the terminal itself. So think about the terminal. The south end of the terminal is where the hotel is. We want to expand to the north end. Expand. There's space there to expand that with a new what I call a processing facility and then have walkable concourses off that area. So you can walk to the concourses that we will build off that new facility that will have airline counters and security and all of that. So it's a walkable concourses with 25 gates each. We have already started sort of the pre construction utility relocation work on the facility that we have to build first to lead to four additional concourses. Two on the north end, two on the south end by the hotel.

[Willie]

Will you charge more for those gates? Is there any difference in cost between gate C82 and A10?

[Phil Washington]

We have use and lease agreements for the airlines and so there's not much difference. I mean closer to the center core they may be a little bit more

[Willie]

expensive but that's typically for bigger jets too.

[Phil Washington]

Correct. And we have international gates as well on a. That might cost a little bit more as well.

[Willie]

So someone brings in and well a380 is different because it's a double decker. So let's just stick with one level airplanes. But someone brings in a, a Dreamliner versus a 737. The 737 is out on one of the far gates. The seven. The, the. The Dreamliner is on one of the close gates just because of the number of passengers. But does that airline pay more for having a bigger jet come and use that gate?

[Phil Washington]

There's a difference. Yes, there is. Yes, absolutely.

[Willie]

Okay. As talking about the cost of operating and why airlines like flying out of den jet fuel is another one. Okay. So right now the WTI crude is trading at 100 bucks a barrel. Today, a barrel of Jet1A is trading for $165 a barrel. So to give everyone a sense of how much more refined jet fuel is than just normal crude, that shows you the price differential of a 65% premium on jet fuel. So all the airlines today are trying to come to the cheapest. I pulled up you Atlanta and Dallas and it didn't surprise me that Dallas was the cheapest. You're in the middle and Atlanta is significantly more expensive on a gallon of jet A. How do you keep your costs so low and how do you get the fuel?

[Phil Washington]

Well, we have pipelines, we have fuel that's trucked in as well, but it's

[Willie]

predominantly from the pipeline that goes straight to the refinery, correct?

[Phil Washington]

Yes, that's right. That's right. Well, on the cost, I think the first thing is increasing non aeronautical revenue as best we can. That's parking, that's a number of other concession revenue things like that where we can keep airline costs down. And I mentioned that cost per employment piece, that CPE piece where we are sort of in the middle of the pack. And that's actually a good thing. But what airports are really, really struggling with right now is how to increase non aeronautical revenue. And I was at a conference not long ago and we have this forum of the 100 top airports, the CEOs from 100 top airports and you go around the room and they mention their challenges or whatever and you come up with this word salad thing with this thing and everyone the predominant thing was growth, modernization, keeping costs down and increasing non aeronautical revenue. What we have done in a big way is the parking is our biggest revenue generator.

[Willie]

So you got 51,000 parking spaces at DIA today, correct?

[Phil Washington]

Correct. About 51,000 or so. And we also have.

[Willie]

You're going to grow that. Is that going to be 70,000?

[Phil Washington]

At some point we likely will grow that. But we are also looking at what public transit can do as well, namely the A line which happy to say I had a part in when I was running rtd. But we may have to, as these numbers grow, we may have to look at parking, we may have to look at additional parking, but we'll look at that. We haven't decided on that just yet. We want to increase transit usage.

[Willie]

Will there be new parking space in the new rental car facility?

[Phil Washington]

We're looking at that. We are building a new consolidated rental car facility. We are well on our way with that. We, we have a professional team that's helping us with that. We're going to start design and construction. We're looking at perhaps employee parking likely on the top level of that. We're looking at about 16 to 18,000 spaces in that consolidated rental car facility. Quick story though, when you look at all of that rental car space when you're driving along Pena, I was talking to one of the pioneers of building the airport and he said, Phil, you know, that space was temporary. And I thought, wow, temporary for 31 years. Which, you know, so one of our big priorities is to build out that space or build out that consolidated rental car facility and really EV chargers and all of that on our way to a zero emission airport.

[Willie]

So be a great spot for a data center. Except for the fact the city council just passed a law that says you can't put a data center in Denver.

[Phil Washington]

I know, I know. Yeah, you know, it, it, it also, and I should mention this, ties to our efforts around energy, you know, resiliency and being energy independent.

[Willie]

So you had a, you had a, you had a blackout, you had a, you had an energy loss in March. Correct. Which was Excel substation. So when that happened, what happens? Do you have just massive generators that kick in? I know you've got solar out there, but can you run without connection to Excel?

[Phil Washington]

We do have some redundancy, but you know, we depend on Excel. We've got generators and all of that, but you know, it's, it's, it's not optimal. You know, when that outage happened, and we have quite a few of them, as you mentioned, you know, all the escalators and the elevators and all of that stopped at an airport. It was again very, very eerie. And so what we've done is said we want, and we've put out a request for information to the private sector on how we can be energy independent eventually. And I stand by that. I mean, we cannot be down, we cannot afford to be down. No airport can afford to be down. I mean, we, we saw the, the outage in Madrid last year, another in Heathrow last year as well, In Atlanta in 2017, they were down like 10 hours. I mean, can you imagine that? And so we've had these outages. And so we went out to the private sector and said we want alternative energy options for this airport. It's like a problem statement. You know, in college you put out this, we put out our problem statement, our challenge statement and said, how can we eventually be energy independent and let's put a pathway or roadmap together to energy independence. And so we put out that RFI a request for information. We got 31 proposals from all over the world on how we can do this. We would be the first airport in the world to be energy independent. And so we're on our way to doing that, which will bring in a whole new industry to the Rocky Mountain region. That is that multimodalism and multi industry focus that we have a whole energy industry we could do here at Denver.

[Willie]

So as you think about other revenue sources, first of all, revenues of DIA now are a billion, two billion, three.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah. Neighborhood. Yeah.

[Willie]

And by law, you don't return any, if you will. They're not profits that come out of DIA that go to the city of Denver. It all stays at dia. And then you continue to reinvest. So we as a community benefit from about $40 billion of economic activity that happens around DEN. But it's not as if the, the city of Denver sits there and says, whoa, we got a windfall. You sent us a check for $300 million last year and so we don't have to go and do X.

[Phil Washington]

Right, right, right. Okay.

[Willie]

And that doesn't change. That's by federal law.

[Phil Washington]

That says federal law.

[Willie]

That's federal law. So you take this cash flow and just pour it back into it with the thought of being the best airport in the world, potentially the largest airport in the world, but then also bringing other economic development to the city of Denver in the state of Colorado.

[Phil Washington]

Yes, that's correct. And let me just put a finer point on it. We use no sales tax dollars. Right. We are an enterprise, so we actually live on what we make. To your point, Right. Through those revenue generating mechanisms that I mentioned. And so what we generate must stay at the airport if it leaves the airport for any reason. That is called diversion of revenue. And that diversion of revenue is a violation of federal law, as you mentioned. So the revenue we generate, we plug in, plow back into the airport. And we need to do that. We absolutely need to do that primarily because of the growth that we're seeing. And it's not just us, we're probably the fastest growing. But when you think about like the 20 largest airports in this country and in the world, all of them have what's called a capital improvement program. And so this capital improvement program, or CIP, when you hear that term, that CIP is in the billions of dollars, yours is 12, ours is about 12 billion over a 10 year period. You know, I spent a lot of time In Los Angeles, LAX, you know, theirs is something like 20 some billion,

[Willie]

but they don't have any Space to grow.

[Phil Washington]

No, they don't. They don't.

[Willie]

So they're going to continue to go into the existing infrastructure and just upgrade the infrastructure. But they've got no ability to say, let's move from X number of passengers to Y because they can't put another Runway down.

[Phil Washington]

That's exactly right. And so we have this incredible benefit, this incredible resource of land here where we can spread and we can develop. And maybe we'll talk about that development piece in a minute as well.

[Willie]

What's a new run? What's a Runway 7 cost? If you just said tomorrow I want to go build Runway seven, what's a Runway cost?

[Phil Washington]

Between 700 million and a billion dollars.

[Bob]

That's pretty cool.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah.

[Bob]

That's a lot of money.

[Phil Washington]

Right, right.

[Willie]

And that's just grading and paving.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I mean, this thing is very deep. It's not like, you know, paving your driveway.

[Willie]

No, I got it. And on that. What about putting radiant heat underneath? Could you do that?

[Phil Washington]

We could. I mean, there's technology out there.

[Willie]

Are there airports that have radiant heat underneath the.

[Phil Washington]

I can't think of one right now. I think there are some. But, you know, six runways. We are doing the pre environmental work on a seventh Runway right now. There's a lot of discussion about that.

[Willie]

What's the environmental work cost you?

[Phil Washington]

Oh, that's.

[Willie]

And I'm asking this because, you know, my next question is going to be about the Pena Boulevard, but what's the environmental cost to go. And by the way, we're talking about farmland between here and Kansas.

[Phil Washington]

Yes, yes, that's right. That's right.

[Willie]

I'm a Denver resident. I like to have clean water. I like to make sure we don't have chemicals running off and into the rivers, all that kind of stuff. But you're going to spend millions on an environmental impact study to try and build Runway seven when it's farmland.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I've been in this role for almost five years and the environmental contracts for the seventh Runway was let before I got here. So that pre environmental was awarded about five and a half years ago, six

[Willie]

years ago to do a pre environmental study.

[Phil Washington]

Environmental overall. Yeah.

[Bob]

Okay.

[Phil Washington]

So we're still in a pre environmental stage, but that contract was let for all of the environmental for a seventh Runway. And so that's being done. Now the issue is, and what we've run into from various stakeholders is, namely the airlines, is are you fully optimizing the six runways you have? So therefore, do you need a seventh Runway. Now, you know what I've said, and what we've said is that once we go over 100 million, in order to sustain or even go beyond 100 million, we need a seventh Runway because of the rate of departures and takeoffs and all of that. And so we know at some point, with forecasts for 20, 45 of 120 million, we're going to need a seventh Runway.

[Willie]

Talk that through for a second. As it relates to everyone in this room has flown in and out of dia, My understanding is that the slope that your jets come in is at the exact same slope at every single 3%, which is the same at every major airport. So you can only have two coming in simultaneously and two taking off simultaneously. Is that correct? Or if you added a seventh, you could actually add a third inbound or a third takeoff.

[Phil Washington]

I believe we could. Yes. Yes. Really? We could do that.

[Willie]

Is there any other airport that's done that where they got three jets taken off simultaneously?

[Phil Washington]

I don't know of any. I don't know of any right now. But keep in mind that we're. We're in geographically. You know, we have wind conditions and all that, so we change runways, like, all the time based on wind conditions, you know, and all of that. So.

[Willie]

But you don't have to worry about any buildings, and you don't have to worry about any noise ordinances. And as a result of that, you have a massive advantage.

[Phil Washington]

Well, we. I would say we don't have to worry about noise. I mean, really, we. We have a 1988 intergovernmental agreement with Adams county that talks a lot about noise and measuring noise and all of that. So we're always concerned about noise. You know, it's inevitable at an airport, though. But I wouldn't say we don't worry about that. We do. We're very concerned about that in many ways.

[Willie]

Oh, that's surprising. So you've got, I think, 350 miles of roads out there.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, yeah.

[Willie]

If you add it all together, that's from D.C. to Boston of continuous roads that you've got to maintain. You've also got more snowfall than another major airport. You and I have talked about this before. What do you do with all that snow?

[Phil Washington]

Well, hopefully it melts.

[Willie]

But you've got a melter.

[Phil Washington]

Yes, we got a melter. We've. We've done very, very well with snow management, if you will.

[Willie]

That has big environmental issues to it. Right. So it all gets melted, and then what happens to the water? Does it get recycled?

[Phil Washington]

Does it yeah, we try to rivers. Yes. We look to retain and capture all of the water. We look to retain and reuse the de icing fluid and all of those things, that sustainability piece that we have, but we look to capture and recycle as much water as we possibly can. And I think we do a pretty good job of it.

[Willie]

And is there anything that doesn't meet the eye that goes on at dia? So for instance, you've got like one

[Bob]

of the things that I looked up

[Willie]

was first of all, you got a jail there. Hopefully nobody in this room knows what the jail at DIA looks like.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, we got a morgue there too. So.

[Willie]

You got a morgue there too?

[Phil Washington]

Oh, yeah.

[Willie]

How many passengers a year show how many passengers a year die on an airplane and end up at DIA to be taken care of back of the envelope.

[Phil Washington]

Oh man. A year? I don't know, probably 10 or below. Yeah, I mean, you know, we, I mean it's, it's, it's not as rare as you think. We have a lot of emergencies on aircraft. We have a lot of emergencies and not deaths fortunately, but we take care, I mean in the concourses, in the terminal, we have a lot of medical emergencies.

[Willie]

You have the largest service dog training facility in the state of Colorado. Why is that?

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, well, you know, the cats program, the K9 program is really a fantastic program. Keeps people calm. You know, this whole idea of neuro diverse and all of that and people get nervous when they fly. And so the K9 program, the cats program really, I mean you would be amazed. We bring all those dogs, those canine in. It really calms a lot of people down, especially kids and seniors as well. And so that is one of our great programs. And people that own these K lines that bring them in, I'm forever grateful to them, you know, that, you know, bring in their dogs and they gotta pass a test. You know, I don't think we don't have any Rockweilers or anything in that K9 program.

[Willie]

And as it relates, I mean all of us look at Instagram and we see all these very sad kind of road rage that happens inside of the cabin of airplanes. I just last night happened to see one of a Southwest Airlines fight between two women. It just kind of came up and I was like, I don't need to see that, but that happens. How often do your either EMTs or law enforcement get called out to a plane to take care of sort of what I would call road rage would be what I'd call it. Even though it's Plane rage.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, plane rage, air rage. It happens. You know, I won't say frequently, but that's reassuring.

[Willie]

I thought you were going to say it happens more than I thought.

[Phil Washington]

No, it happens occasionally. I will say where we have a disturbance on an aircraft, we have a fair number of planes that are sent to then for various reasons and might be a disturbance in the air, it might be a medical emergency and they are diverted to then, you know, I think a lot of that happens, you know, when they are sent to us is because they know that our teams are very, very proficient. Both our medical teams, both our fire department there. And we pay for those services from downtown as well. Police and fire and all of that. We pay the city for that, by the way. But I think many of these are sort of referred to, Dan, because they know we have the personnel to handle pretty much any situation.

[Willie]

When you have police, you have paramedics, you have gate agents, you have pilots, you have passengers, you have caterers, you have fuel, 40,000 people working in this ecosystem, they're not all your employees.

[Phil Washington]

Correct.

[Willie]

How do you manage the access, safety component when they all have access to your facility and are all participating there? But if some, let's just say Southwest Airlines gate agent decides that he or she doesn't want to act the way that they're supposed to act in going to the gate, in being engaged with a flyer who may be or not be flying with Southwest, how do you deal with that?

[Phil Washington]

Well, I think the first thing is creating a culture within the entire ecosystem. Even though we don't handle everyone, we're not responsible for everyone. I think that we can really lay out a vision of safety and excellence and all of those things and create that culture ecosystem wide. And so we've done that. We meet with the airlines, you know, once or twice a month as a sort of a consortium of all the airlines. And so we talk about this culture thing, we talk about safety, we talk about all these things. And the airlines, you know, they handle their business as well, you know, airline employees. The example that you gave all of the vendors, the concessions and all of these folks out there, I think I want to thank that they understand what the culture is and what the vision is of the airport itself. And I think they adhere to it. That's not to say we don't have issues we do, but I think for the most part, everyone understands that we need to run a good ship and we have done that.

[Willie]

Is there a person? So United has 90 gates at DIA. Southwest has like, is there a person at United, who sort of is the station manager of everything that goes on at dia. So you call him or her and say, hey, we got an issue. Or they call you and say, hey, we were on gate 8:20 and something's not happening.

[Phil Washington]

Absolutely. We talk to those station managers on a daily basis. You mentioned United. They have a wonderful lady who is the station manager, great professional, and we talk to her frequently. Again, probably almost every day. The same thing with all of the other airlines. And then we meet as a group at least once a month. And I'm in that meeting. Several other folks from our team are in that meeting. So we work through these issues. If we have an incident, we talk about the lesson learned, we talk about the after action review that we do. So it works. I mean, it's a big ecosystem and people find it hard to imagine how we control all that. But we've got good people there at the airport that help us do that.

[Willie]

I was looking at what your biggest city pairs are. I was surprised that Phoenix is your largest city pair. And then it goes Phoenix, Vegas, I believe, then Dallas and then la. Yes, but I was surprised about those. I would have, I think about this being a regional hub and people coming in here and then going off to places like Boise that don't have a whole lot of direct access or. But all four of those airports are major international airports. They've got lots of international flights coming into them. That surprised me that those were your biggest city pairs. And I guess the question would be how much are you working on getting flights from Asia to fly over San Francisco, fly over LA and come to Denver to then allow passengers to spread out into the United States? Because your number one international destination is Cancun, which is just Denverites going to Cancun or someone from Boise comes through here to go to Cancun. That's not necessarily someone in Tokyo saying, I'm going to New York and I'm not going to go direct to New York, I'm going to go to Denver and transfer across. What's the opportunity there?

[Phil Washington]

Well, I think what we bill ourselves, what we've been saying over the last five years, is that we are the gateway to the West. So it's in my mind it's not just about Denver. The gateway to the west is come into Denver, catch that connecting flight to Phoenix or wherever. And so we have been sort of promoting ourselves that way internationally. We have been very, very aggressive over the last five to six years on international. We believe that with the rise of the middle class in Asia in Africa, that travel will just, you know, we're already seeing the growth. And so we have taken delegations to the continent of Africa. We are really targeting the continent of Africa. We actually went to Addis, Ethiopia, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and took a delegation there and met with the government because Ethiopian Airlines is owned and managed by the government of Ethiopia, and met with the prime minister there about a flight from Addis to Denver. There are some challenges with that. Addis is actually a higher elevation than Denver, and so we would have to take off from here with a less than full tank because of the weight that is involved with that. But I see tremendous growth on the continent of Africa, Asia as well. Quick story. I was in Istanbul about a year

[Unnamed Guest]

ago, and we're in a setting like this. We had a delegation that went there because we got a direct flight, Turkish airline. And the gentleman from the Chamber of Commerce. Commerce came in and said, you know, we don't aspire necessarily to a big house like Americans do and the picket fence and all of that. We aspire to travel. So we're not so much concerned with maybe how Americans think about a house and all of that, because, you know, what he said was, we can't afford it, but we want to travel and our children want to travel. And I thought, you know what? That's pretty incredible to me. And we need to put Denver on the map, if you will, and not just have it as a flyover city. And so that is why this whole idea of economic development and us being a generator of $47 billion a year, whatever it is, it really boils down to what's happening here in Denver that people want to come to and the West. And so all of these things the city government is doing, the mayor is doing, and all of that really ties into the potential that we have for folks to come here from all over.

[Willie]

Are you talking about flights from Africa or from the Middle east or from. You won't make it from the Middle East. That's too far right now. But from Asia and from Europe. Europe. What about space? Could DIA ever be a landing pad for people who go up to space and come back to space? Given you got long runways, you got runways that have very, very, you know, sturdy runways below them, and you're pouring concrete down. How deep is that concrete? Is it six feet?

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, it's at least six feet.

[Willie]

Really?

[Phil Washington]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Wow.

[Willie]

Have you guys thought about space?

[Phil Washington]

We have. We actually have. Listen, we got a spaceport within five miles of the airport, right? And we meet with the folks from Spaceport all the time. I absolutely believe that we are in the best position of any airport in this country to have space travel from now. We got to build the infrastructure and all that. But I think that we're so well suited. We talked about the land that we have and we talked about the space that we have to build. We talk about. We haven't talked too much about the opportunities for development that we're doing right now. But I absolutely believe when I think about 20, 30, 40 years from now, DIN is the launching pad. It's the launching pad.

[Willie]

So you think about that in the context of SpaceX and Tesla and how Elon Musk is the S3 on or S1 on SpaceX came out yesterday. That gives lots of insight into what the SpaceX IPO is going to look like in it. One of the things that I thought was so interesting was the fact that elon has these two ecosystems between Tesla and everything that's in Tesla and SpaceX and everything that's SpaceX and it's all co mingled. You got SpaceX buying the Tesla SUVs.

[Phil Washington]

Right.

[Willie]

You've got all of these different companies are interacting with each other. So you're sitting here saying we're positioned as potentially the best airport to try and attract space activity, and yet the Denver City Council yesterday banned the development of data centers. You think Elon Musk comes to Denver?

[Phil Washington]

What I will say from an infrastructure standpoint, what I feel our team's job is, is to prepare the way. I am not, of course, an elected official.

[Bob]

No, but I'm trying to push you on this one.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah. You know, I'm an infrastructure guy. I was an infrastructure guy since I was a kid. You know what I mean? I was just like where my mother worked 14 hours a day and wondered when the next bus would come as we lived in public housing. My mom is a single mother. I was enamored with infrastructure for the good of humanity. And I'm talking about infrastructure. I'm talking sidewalks, water, transit and all of that. We want to do what we can in our foxhole, if you will, to show that we can prepare the way, in terms of infrastructure for anything that we can dream of. When I think about space, I think about what do we need to do at Denver International Airport to prepare that facility with the hope. With the hope that the politics will follow. Right.

[Willie]

Is it too much to ask for the politics to lead?

[Phil Washington]

I think so.

[Willie]

Fair answer.

[Phil Washington]

I think so. And I'm not talking about just here. I'm talking about just nationally. I think that if I think about how I can prepare the way and I think about all these things, I think about that we've talked about, I think about energy independence, pave the way for that. Whether that is geothermal, whether that is small modular reactors that, you know, I get beat up on.

[Willie]

You do?

[Phil Washington]

But I stand by it though. Absolutely.

[Willie]

How much would a small scale reactor to be able to give you enough energy cost?

[Phil Washington]

Well, I mean I think right now I think about the need to run, have energy and electricity 24, seven, seven days a week or whatever. And it's not just SMRs. It's a combination of all these things.

[Willie]

But could you do it on just SMRs?

[Phil Washington]

I think eventually we will be able to.

[Willie]

And any idea what that would cost?

[Phil Washington]

I don't know. I don't know right now. It costs too much to do that right now. But I'm looking down the road even

[Willie]

with you having a $12 billion capital campaign right now. So it's bigger than that.

[Phil Washington]

Yes, I think so. I think so. I think so. But you know, I mean these things are expensive now. SMRs, you know, there's no real.

[Willie]

Could you pull it off on solar or the storage doesn't allow you to do it?

[Phil Washington]

I think solar. I don't think we have enough solar to do that. Even though we have more solar arrays and we have probably the largest solar farm of any airport in this country.

[Willie]

Right.

[Phil Washington]

We can't do it just on solar. And so I think we're going to need a little bit more. And so I'm not just stuck on SMRs. I think we can do this across the board. I think we could do a combination of various alternative energy options to get us where we want to go, which is energy independence.

[Willie]

Final couple questions. I talked earlier about the environmental impact study on Runway seven. You've got an environmental impact study going on on the widening of Pena Boulevard. Of all the bottlenecks, you've gone and you've changed the TSA lines and brought it down to the best in the country. You've got your canceled flights down at the best in the country. You've got more growth than any other airport in the country. And yet Pena Boulevard is still two lanes out and two lanes back. And to anyone who goes out there all the time sits there and says, why am I waiting longer to get in my car out there than I am to get through security into my gate?

[Phil Washington]

Exactly.

[Willie]

We're gonna get some relief here.

[Phil Washington]

Absolutely. And listen, we are talking about improving Pena.

[Willie]

Well, that's just widening it, isn't it?

[Phil Washington]

Well, we cannot predetermine the outcome during the environmental period. Actually, that's against the law. So I have my ideas. But this is why we're going through that environmental process.

[Willie]

This is a $12 million environmental impact study.

[Phil Washington]

I forget how much it is.

[Willie]

I believe it's $12 million.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, yeah.

[Willie]

But to figure out whether a swallow is going to have its migratory pattern change by us adding two more lanes to Pena Boulevard.

[Phil Washington]

Yeah, it's. You know, we are looking to accelerate that environmental process as best we can, but we've got to go through it.

[Willie]

You want to make a bet? You want to make a bet with me that you've got a fix to your duality on the trams before Pena gets widened?

[Phil Washington]

No, I'm not going to bet. I'm not going to bet. I'm not going to bet. But I will tell you this. We are scheduled to get to what's called a preferred alternative by the end of this year. Now, the preferred alternative says this is what we want and plan to do. Now you got to go through this community thing and all of that, which we're nearing the end of. And at the end of this year, we're going to come out with that preferred alternative. Widening is one of the alternatives that we are out there shopping.

[Willie]

Sorry, what would be something else?

[Phil Washington]

I can't remember. All double deckers. No, no, no.

[Bob]

I'm trying to figure out what's the

[Willie]

alternative beyond just widening it. Isn't it just widening it?

[Phil Washington]

Well, there's a couple. There's. There's the widening. I can't. I'll come back to you with the other ones. But there's a transit element that we're doing too. We've got 20 recommendations for what's called transit demand management. 20 recommendations that we can improve the transit side. But people don't realize that we own Pena, the airport does, and we're responsible for maintaining it. But to your point, the fact that Pena has not changed in 31 years, it's about time that we do something about. And we are. We're at the end of that environmental period. And here's a bet I'll make with you.

[Willie]

Great. I'm not sure I'll take it. But you put it out there.

[Phil Washington]

I bet that they will be a lot of consternation with whatever preferred alternative we come up with. Or people might just say, hey, that's great, Phil, but listen, it's something that we need to do. I mean, we've had to explain to People that we cannot go from 50 million annual passengers, airport design for 50 to 100 and not do something about Pena 100%. Yeah. I mean, just like we're doing with all this other stuff, right? We're doing the consolidated rental car facility. We are looking at a seventh Runway. We're building the north terminal expansion to get us to 120. We are expanding Concourse Sea to the west to get us to 100 million. We're doing all this sustainability things, alternative energy options, all of this. We've got to focus on the road that gets us to the airport. And I'm happy to say over the last four or five years we have done that. And we're nearing the end of it, towards the end of this year where we are going to announce that preferred alternative.

[Willie]

So as I was getting myself ready for all this and looking at all the stats, I looked at what an impact what you manage has on this state. And I said it at the top. It's got tens of thousands of employees. The largest employer in the state of Colorado. It's got 10% of the state's GDP. There's no other company or government service that has that much of a contribution to our state's gdp. It's innovating and it's growing faster than almost anything else. And you run it. So I was sitting there saying, is Phil the most important person in the state of Colorado? And I will tell you, you're damn close to it. The governor may have more sway over an overall GDP growth and where he puts his finger on the scale to say that needs to grow or that doesn't or we're going to invest there. But barring the governor, I don't know someone else who I could have had to this conversation who has a bigger impact on growth and the GDP of the state of Colorado. And so thank you for all you do. Thanks for answering all of my very detailed questions. I love what you do. I love flying in and out of your airport. And I really appreciate you joining us today.

[Phil Washington]

Thank you so much for having me. Thank everyone that's here or online or whatever. And thank you for being just such a supporter of Denver International Airport and aviation.

[Willie]

Phil has the one one drawback of knowing me as well as I know Phil is that he gets these texts from me at random times that say,

[Bob]

like, I've been waiting for 32 minutes for my bag and it hasn't shown

[Phil Washington]

up on Carousel Bob.

[Bob]

And he's like, it's coming, Willie. I've got the team on and it's all good.

[Phil Washington]

So I remember that.

[Bob]

Yeah, well, that would actually. I'm not as. I hope everyone in the room who's watching this knows I don't do that. What I did do once was I

[Willie]

was coming back through the international terminal, and literally the baggage carousel exploded.

[Phil Washington]

That was terrible.

[Bob]

Literally exploded in front of me. So I texted Phil and I said, I'm at baggage carousel 1 in the International tournament. And the thing literally just exploded. And he's like, thank you very much.

[Willie]

We're on it.

[Bob]

So I'm not quite as bad as my bags have taken me a long time. The whole thing had blown up.

[Phil Washington]

Well, what's funny about that. What you didn't know was that I was on an international flight right behind you.

[Bob]

Yeah. Was it fixed by the time you got there?

[Phil Washington]

No, no. But I had just landed, and I was behind you on another flight, and I walked in and saw that, and our folks, you know, I texted our folks were working on it when I got to the international carousel.

[Bob]

That's great.

[Willie]

So, Phil, thank you so much. It's been great. Great conversation.

[Bob]

Thank you all.

[Phil Washington]

Thank you. Thank you, sir.