On Valentine’s Day, United Airlines launched daily direct flights from Denver International Airport to a pair of new destinations: Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., and Syracuse, N.Y. In June, the carrier will begin offering direct flights to Portland, Maine, and Fort Myers, Fla., out of Denver on summer weekends.

If this news has you yawning, that’s because airlines announcing new direct routes out of DIA has become routine the last two years.

In 2018, airlines added 59 new routes — that means nonstop service to a destination — at DIA, airport officials say. Including the routes United announced last week, officials say 35 routes will be added at DIA between Jan. 1 and June 30 , putting the airport on pace for an even more announcement-heavy 2019.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what year the 24-year-old airport added its most new routes, spokeswoman Emily Williams said. With mergers and acquisitions like United’s 2012 absorption of Continental Airlines, some years have skewed numbers where existing routes are counted twice because they were taken on by a new company, she said.

“I can’t say (2018) is the year that we added the most routes, but we’ve added a lot of routes,” Williams said. “It’s good news for passengers. More options.”

The rapid growth in routes comes with a backdrop of physical growth on DIA’s trio of cavernous concourses. Work in underway now on an expansion project that will add 39 gates at the airport by 2021, and airlines are already jockeying for position when it comes to laying claim to that extra space.

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