Being quite distanced from CO politics, I know about this only from news blurbs I skimmed over, but here’s what I seem to recall:
The mayor of Denver, and the governor of CO decided that DIA needed to be rebuilt.
There were some dissenting voices that said that the existing airport could be modified, and that a new complex did not need to be built.
(My inference:) Once the new airport was built (much farther out than the old airport), the old one was razed, thus removing the temptation to fly into the older (and more convenient) airport (as in Love Field in Dallas).
Obviously the new airport works just fine, but what exactly was so out-of-date that a completely new airport was required? In retrospect, did the critics of the new airport have good points?
Again, I have to feel for CO politics, but I got the idea (admitting that I did not do any thorough researching) that the mayor and the guv basically said, “We’re gonna build this new airport whether we need it or not.”
Two main reasons were presented: one, they thought they needed something larger, that would not fit into the old Stapleton space, and two, they were concerned about flights into what was surrounded by a heavily populated area–which contributed to number one, and was a reason for razing too.
I once watched from the window of a restaurant near Stapleton a large jet make an approach to the runway, and pull up when it was less than fifty feet from the ground. I was close enough, had it crashed, that parts could have ended up in my soup.
IIRC the two runways at Stapelton were less than 1 mile apart. Which means that in bad weather only one runway could remain active. This is an FAA rule.
Denver being a hub airport meant that losing 50% of it’s capacity when the weather is bad caused problems all over the country with late flights, missed coneections etc.
SFO has the same problem.
Stapleton was a very scary airport. I didn’t like it at all, and my local airport requires planes to power down during take-off! So if I’m freaked out, that’s saying something.
You still have the crazy winds at DIA, but it isn’t as bad as I remember Stapleton being.
