Aspen Airport to Repave Large Portions of Runway During Spring Closure
The Aspen-Pitkin County Airport will be closed for 27 days for shoulder season maintenance that primarily includes pavement improvement. The closure runs from Monday, May 5, until June 1.
The dates of the maintenance were released in September 2024, when the Aspen airport announced its need to focus on a major resurfacing of the landing strip.
“We have areas of the runway that we’re milling down 3 inches and repaving, and then we’re crack-sealing other areas of the runway,” said Interim Airport Director Diane Jackson. “When that is all complete, we will actually be applying a slurry seal over the full runway. It will get fresh, brand new markings and then be reopened.”
Aspen airport intentionally plans these maintenance projects during the shoulder season when it creates the least amount of impact, according to Jackson.
Eliza Voss, the Aspen Chamber of Commerce vice president of Destination Marketing, agreed that this is the right time for these types of projects to take place at the airport.
“It aligns with our natural shoulder season anyway,” she said. “Which is intentional to have as little of an impact as possible.”
Aspen airport won’t only be working on the runway resurfacing. Construction crews will also be working to make three more of the airplane parking positions suitable for the E175 plane, as airlines increasingly switch their fleets to that model.
The E175 requires a different concrete footprint for its wheelbase as compared to the CRJ700, so crews will need to make changes to existing parking spaces for those planes.
None of the construction will change airport capacity. The concrete footprints for the E175 planes will make the parking spaces more versatile, but do not add additional capacity to the airport.
“We are not expanding anything,” said Jackson. “We’re just reconfiguring two additional positions. We’re just basically making available a parking position to the CRJ or the E175.”
The parking space changes could be worked on prior to andafter the closure without affecting airport traffic. Additionally, the runway needs to cure after being laid down, meaning runway landing markings are placed temporarily.
Once the runway has cured, the runway will receive its permanent markings at night without affecting traffic.
The project, which will cost more than $3.5 million, is entirely funded with the airport enterprise fund. The fund receives money from fees that the airport collects during operation.
“(The maintenance is) not subsidized by taxpayer funds. So it is all coming from the airport and user fees,” said Jackson.
During the closure, travelers who may have been planning on leaving from or flying to Aspen will need to find alternative routes through other local airports, namely either Grand Junction, Eagle, or Denver.
By: Colin SuszynskiI The Aspen Times I April 29, 2025