// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
A new world airport and its baggage
Aviation came to Denver mainly in the form of mail. Like much of the inland
West, the first airfields served a smattering of passenger flights (both
expensive and uncomfortable in the 1930s) and a regular schedule of contract
mail carriers. Postal Service air mail contracts built many of the nation's
major airlines—and its major airports. One of Denver's simple airstrips,
Denver Municipal Airport, transformed from a mail stop to a busy airport when
Continental Airlines moved its headquarters to Denver 1937, and then again when
a modern passenger terminal was completed in 1946. Along the way, it had been
renamed for the mayor who oversaw much of its development: Stapleton.
The Second World War, and then the post-war return, brought both a boom in
aviation generally and in Denver specifically. The city's population grew by
almost 10,000 a year from 1940 to 1960. During the '60s, Stapleton gained an
additional runway and a new terminal as the schedule grew from under forty
departures a day to over one hundred. When airline deregulation prompted a
total restructuring of the industry, both by consolidation and widespread
adoption of a "hub and spoke" model, Denver's central location made it an
obvious choice of hub. United, Continental, Western, and Frontier Airlines all
made Denver Stapleton a busy node in their growing networks.
With growing traffic, Stapleton showed its age. The passenger terminals were
too small, but moreover, the field had become cramped. The runways were too
close to each other for more than one simultaneous approach during instrument
conditions, a bottleneck so severe that bad weather in Denver would cause flight
delays that cascaded nationwide. The airfield at Stapleton could not be
expanded: a combination of terrain, adjacent land in private ownership, and
legal disputes with nearby residents and Adams County (where Stapleton was
located) effectively precluded any runway additions or extensions. By the '80s,
Southwest Airlines was rapidly expanding beyond its native Texas—but service to
Denver was blocked by a lack of available gates at Stapleton.
By fluke of politics, the City of Denver was abruptly committed to construction
of a brand-new airport in 1983: mayoral candidate Monte Pascoe had made a New
World Airport the core of his platform. As it happened, he came up third in a
race of three, but not before goading the other two candidates—including winner
Frederico Peña—into signing a written commitment to see the new airport through.
In 1984, planning started for the New Denver Airport. 48.3 square miles of Adams
County were annexed to Denver and, in 1989, Denver voters approved a referendum
in favor of the new airport by a wide margin. Located northeast of Denver on a
huge plot of mostly agricultural land, many of us have been there, at least on a
layover: Denver International Airport, DIA 1.
From the New World Order to contracting scandals to "Blucifer," DIA is an
infamous airport. Some level of, well, intrigue was probably guaranteed. DIA was
the first major airport project in the United States since Dallas-Fort Worth in
1974. DIA planners, later defending their efforts, noted that they had
extensively studied the lessons learned from comparable US projects since the
Second World War, of which they had identified only two. One of the largest
public works projects to date, DIA's budget started around $3 billion and ended
at nearly $5. Along the way, a lot went wrong.
This is not a full history of DIA's awkward early years. That would require a
book, and a challenging one to write given that the ensuing lawsuits, political
scandal, and media attention mean that many of the facts are disputed. But
before we reach our main story, it will be helpful to understand some of the
context in which DIA was formed.
By the time primary construction was underway in 1990, DIA was slated to be one
of the largest airports in the nation. Despite that, it technically had no
airlines. Political details of the proje