Continental was operating daily Vickers Viscount propjet service on a roundtrip routing of Denver, Colorado Springs. Pueblo, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Alamogordo, and El Paso. As Continental was continuing its growth as a major air carrier, its Alamogordo service was transferred to Frontier Airlines in 1963. Frontier began flights to Albuquerque and El Paso with the 50-seat Convair 580 turboprop aircraft however the El Paso flights were later dropped. In the late-1970s, two small commuter airlines began service, Zia Airlines with Handley Page Jetstream propjets flights to Albuquerque and Airways of New Mexico to El Paso. By late-1979, Frontier was in the midst of becoming an all-jet airline and thus discontinued its Alamogordo service with commuter airlines continuing to serve the airport. Zia ceased operating in early 1980 and Air Midwest then began flights to Albuquerque with Swearingen Metroliner propjet commuter aircraft later that year. Airways of New Mexico also initiated flights to Albuquerque with Air Midwest ending their service in 1981. Airways of New Mexico ceased operating in 1985 at which time Mesa Airlines began service with Beechcraft 99 and Beechcraft 1900 turboprop airliners. JetAire, a new commuter airline operating Handley Page Jetstream propjets, also served the Alamogordo to Albuquerque market for a few months in 1985. In the spring of 1987, Trans-Colorado Airlines, operating as Continental Express on behalf of Continental Airlines via a code sharing agreement, briefly provided flights for several months to El Paso using Swearingen Metroliners. Another short-lived commuter airline, Air Ruidoso, briefly provided flights to Albuquerque and El Paso in the spring of 1988. Mesa's service to Albuquerque continued until 2002, when Rio Grande Air was awarded a federal Essential Air Service (EAS) contract for subsidized flying to smaller U.S. cities. Two years later, Rio Grande Air ceased operations and the EAS contract was then awarded to Westward Airlines which only operated for a few months in 2005 before suspending operations as well. The EAS contract was then given to Valley Air Express; however, this airline was still on the drawing board and never got off the ground. Mesa Airlines was then ordered to return to Alamogordo until early 2008 when Pacific Wings, dba New Mexico Airlines, began service using single engine, nine-seat Cessna 208 Caravan turboprop aircraft. The Caravan is an unpressurized and smaller and slower type of aircraft and passenger traffic dwindled causing the EAS subsidies to be cancelled in 2012. New Mexico