COS Airport sees almost 6% decrease in November passengers, government shutdown takes partial blame

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — The longest government shutdown in American history is partly to blame for a 5.6% decrease in passengers using the Colorado Springs Airport (COS) last month.

In the latest monthly traffic report, the airport revealed nearly 11,000 fewer passengers passed through the terminal as the 43-day federal government shutdown dragged on until Nov. 13.

“Last month’s decrease is indicative of seasonality, the U.S. government shutdown and the subsequent flight restrictions mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that followed,” the airport said in a press release.

“Though COS was not part of the FAA’s list of 40 airports with flight restrictions, operations from those airports directly contributed to 74 cancelled flights at COS,” the release said.

Apart from the cancelled flights due to FAA restrictions, the shutdown likely triggered fewer government workers and contractors traveling as well.

One of Southwest Airlines direct routes from COS flies to the Baltimore/Washington (BWI) Airport on the East Coast.

Southwest Airlines wouldn’t directly answer how much the COS-BWI passenger numbers decreased during the shutdown, saying that was material and proprietary information.

But during the third quarter earnings call with Southwest company executives near the end of October, the shutdown’s impacts on government and government-adjacent travel was mentioned.

“You see government travel -- goes to 0 very quickly,” said Andrew M. Watterson, Chief Operating Officer for Southwest Airlines during that call. “These are defense contractors. These are companies that kind of do business with the government and they held up until last week, and they went down sequentially.”

The COS traffic report showed Southwest passengers decreased almost 12% in November 2025 compared to November 2024.

That daily COS-BWI route, which currently flies six days a week during the holiday period, was announced in 2023 with direct mention of the Pikes Peak region’s strong aerospace, defense, and military economy as reasons to launch it.

At the time of the announcement over two years ago, then-Director of Aviation for COS, Greg Phillips, said the Baltimore service would bring “a value-added opportunity that is of particular significance for aerospace, defense, and military organizations."

Mayor Yemi Mobolade at the time also noted the BWI route “supports the future growth of our thriving defense, cyber and aerospace industries and the many military service members who call our city home.”

According to the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the local aerospace and defense industry employs over 100,000 workers.

Local economist Dr. Bill Craighead, director of the UCCS Economic Forum, told KOAA at the start of the government shutdown that one in eight paychecks would be impacted. But he noted that it’s difficult to quantify how many federal contractors are in the region.

With such a large number of federal employees and contractors in the Pikes Peak region who likely utilize COS for business travel, it’s likely they contributed some impact to the passenger decrease last month. But it’s difficult to determine by how much.

Due to the holiday week, officials with COS couldn’t respond to requests for comment.

United Airlines, which operates 12 daily flights to Denver along with routes to Houston and Chicago, said their 14% decrease in November year-over-year passenger volume was "in line with our planned YoY change in capacity and unrelated to the government shutdown."

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