DENVER — Train delays led to long wait times at Denver International Airport's C Concourse Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Airport officials say the reduced service was caused by scheduled maintenance.
Photos of dozens of stranded travelers poured into our emails from viewers.
One Denver7 viewer reported being stranded due to the maintenance, asking us to investigate the lack of communication from airport staff and what can be done to prevent delays like this from happening again.
We're using what we heard from them to hold the airport accountable.
“When I came down, it was just a sea of people, and they had actually stopped the escalator. People were hauling their luggage down the escalators,” said traveler Peggy Carrieres.
Denver7 found that planned maintenance to replace a part of the track ended up interfering with an influx of late-arriving flights due to weather delays.
“It really was confusing, and there was no good communication at all,” said Carrieres.
We took those concerns to Matt Robb, senior vice president of technical operations.
“Last night, we used the data that we have available to understand how many passengers were coming in at certain hours. And we actually did make adjustments to the train schedule last night to run seven trains until 10:30 p.m., which is more than we typically run. Unfortunately, we came down a little bit too early where we would have liked to extend that,” explained Robb.
As for the packed platforms, and what viewers say was a lack of communication?
“We heard nothing on the loudspeaker,” said Carrieres.
Another Denver7 viewer echoed those concerns, so we took that question to Robb.
“What announcements were made to stranded travelers at what time? And are the expectations that travelers in the train waiting area would hear the announcement?” asked Denver7’s Adria Iraheta.
“Absolutely, yes. We had two different announcements going out,” replied Robb.“But depending on where they were and the volume around them, they may not have heard that. It is something that we continuously look at and we emphasize with our contractors and with our operations team.”
Robb said this type of maintenance occurs approximately once a month with no impact on passengers.
Their big takeaway from last night’s crowds, he said, is this:
“We certainly don't want our passengers to get stuck in this type of situation. So there are some lessons learned for us in terms of improved communication that will take away and implement to ensure we don't run into this situation again,” he said.
Denver International Airport has been studying alternatives to trains between the concourse and the terminal.
One of those ideas included a pedestrian bridge from Terminal A to Terminal B and from B to C.
Denver7 asked DIA CEO Phil Washington in July 2024 when the airport may select an alternative.
“We're looking at those [ideas],” Washington said. “We're going to make a call on those or whether we proceed with that, probably in the next six months or so. But they're not cheap. And we need to understand what our priorities are and prioritize.”
As of today, the airport confirms no decisions have been made, and there is no set timeline for those alternatives.