Denver International Airport employees question CEO about $19,000 business class flights; "Creates a rift"
Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington is again being pressed for answers about costly business class tickets that he approved for his executive staff -- one costing over $19,000 to attend an April conference in Madrid. The questions are now coming from his own employees.
A photo from Denver International Airport in Colorado in December 2024
AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images
At a quarterly "Town Hall" meeting Monday for Denver International Airport workers, one asked "about the media story that ran recently on travel." The anonymous employee asked about the "ethical decision to spend quite a bit on an international business class ticket." According to the meeting moderator, "The comment was, 'It creates a rift in the sentiment between front line and senior leadership.'"
Earlier this month, a CBS News Investigation reported on the trip Washington took to the three day conference with eight members of his executive staff.
The overall cost of the trip for the nine execs to attend the three day conference was about $165,000, or an average of about $18,000 for flights, conference costs, hotels and meals.
Washington and all of his subordinates flew either business class or first class both to and from Madrid, with one ticket costing $19,194.21 and another coming in at just under $16,000. Two other roundtrip fares were about $12,000. And the other five ranged from $9,000 to $11,000.
Responding to the employee question Monday, Washington said, "I think the conference was worthwhile. It was a great investment in our folks." He explained the high cost of tickets, saying "All of the travel requests should be done at the same time. In this case they were not. Some travel requests came in a little later."
Washington explained to employees, "In this case some prices went up at the wrong time when we were reserving those tickets."
Robert Laney, a travel consultant who specializes in seat upgrades for international flights, said the airport should simply have waited a bit longer to buy tickets as prices would have come down.
"You would have hit a day where United would have come down to earth and you would have seen eight (thousand), nine (thousand) at some point in time," said Laney.
He said he was in "shock, disbelief" that Denver International Airport paid so much for business class seats to Spain.
Records and receipts obtained during the CBS News investigation showed most of the tickets for the airport execs were purchased several months in advance -- none were last minute purchases.
The money used to buy the tickets on United were derived from Denver International Airport revenues from concessions, car rentals and other airport user fees.
Washington told the airport employees "We are reviewing our (travel) policy. There are some revisions we could make to that policy."
An airport spokesperson said there are no specific policy changes to share yet, as the airport is looking at their entire policy that allowed the pricey travel, from travel requests to booking to reimbursements.
"But," said Washington, "I stand by the professional development opportunity as an investment in our people that will pay off in the long run."
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