Daily passenger air service is returning to Dubuque Regional Airport in November, with regional carrier Denver Air Connection offering midday flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The service to Chicago, slated to start Nov. 4, will be the first regularly scheduled flights out of Dubuque since low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines made its last flight in April.
The local airport has been without daily commercial service since American Airlines stopped its flights there in September 2022. “We have good news. We did it,” Mayor Brad Cavanagh said Tuesday at a press conference at Dubuque Regional Airport.
“We are so excited to partner with (Denver Air) on restoring daily service in this beautiful terminal.” Denver Air has interline ticketing and baggage transfer agreements with all three legacy carriers, meaning passengers arriving at O’Hare can seamlessly catch an American, United or Delta flight to points elsewhere around the nation and the world. Denver Air’s service will be provided on 50-seat ERJ145 aircraft from Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer.
The planes have 18 rows with three seats per row, with an aisle between seats. The 170-mile flight east by southeast to O’Hare will take less than an hour. Officials picked the timing of the midday flights to help passengers make connections to and from the West Coast.
“Some days the taxi from the gate to the runway will be longer than the actual flight,” said Jon Coleman, a Denver Air vice president on han.