[2] Larger commercial jet aircraft by scheduled passenger airlines operates into the Yampa Valley Airport (HDN) 25 miles (40 km) west of Steamboat Springs near Hayden, Colorado which can handle Boeing 737 and 757 jetliners as well as Airbus A319 and A320 jets.

Year-round service to Denver is provided at HDN by United Express and Southwest Airlines while multiple carriers with mainline jet flights operate to several major cities during the winter ski season.

According to the Official Airline Guide (OAG), Steamboat Springs Airport previously had scheduled passenger flights to Denver (DEN) operated by Rocky Mountain Airways with small de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft during the mid 1970s followed by larger 50-passenger de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7s by the late 1970s.

Rocky Mountain Airways later operated Dash 7 service into the airport on behalf of Continental Airlines via a code sharing agreement from 1986 through 1994 with up to ten flights a day to Denver.

[5] In 1997, Maverick Airways was operating Dash 7 service to Denver on behalf of the current version of Frontier Airlines via a code sharing agreement from January 1997 until their bankruptcy in May 1997.