Flights of Fancy: Ten New Services SkySquad Could Offer at Denver International Airport

Flying can seem super-exotic…until you have to do it. Most kids — and the significant number of adults who’ve never had the experience — see taking a flight to a far-off destination as exciting. And maybe it used to be, back when people dressed up to travel, food and drinks were served, and seats weren’t scrunched so close together that you could smell what the person next to you had for lunch. No longer. We’re living in the time of buses with wings and jet engines. Human cattle cars in the sky.

And that’s once you get in the air: The process of getting through a major airport like Denver International is a time- and soul-suck odyssey unto itself.

SkySquad wants to make that experience a little nicer. It offers “car door to plane door” service, according to SkySquad CEO and founder Julie Melnick, who started a company called Nanny in the Clouds back in 2012, inspired by her own struggles getting through large airports with her then-infant son. “We kept getting requests on the website from other types of passengers asking for help,” Melnick recalls. That model, which matched people on the same flight with those who needed an assist, was popular but very complicated, so Melnick revisioned her business, and in 2019 started SkySquad, hiring local agents to help flyers needing an extra hand.

Based in California, SkySquad has since expanded to Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and now Denver. What it offers is a sort of VIP service that most large airports lack: someone meeting you at your car, carrying your luggage, expediting both the check-in and TSA lines, accompanying you to your gate and waiting with you until boarding. The new service in Denver costs $59, and that covers everyone in your traveling party; according to airport officials, SkySquad offered the most economical, efficient option.

Melnick suggests that SkySquad is really all about reducing travel anxiety, even for small things like watching your carry-on while you hit the restrooms one more time before boarding. SkySquad has served over 50,000 customers since its inception, including three first-time flyers during its first two days in Denver. “It’s really all about alleviating the stress we can all feel in traveling, for whatever reason,” Melnick says. “We’ll be there to make sure everything is as easy and taken care of as we can.”

But is SkySquad ready to lead travelers through all the weirdness of Denver International Airport? Here are a few other services it might want to offer:

Blucifer Curse-Proxy

Anyone who has the misfortune to lock eyes with the demon steed known as Blucifer is cursed in all future travel plans, and that's nothing to take lightly.  A full-service company might offer something akin to the old tradition of the Sin-Eater —a voluntary stooge, as it were, to take on the bad juju of someone willing to pay them for the soul-risking trouble.

Gargoyle Guide

Why the gargoyles? Someone has to know the answer. While this person is at it, they could also tell the fabled stories of cool stuff the airport used to have, like the fountains that shot up a visual of a purple-mountain-majesty horizon, or the doomed automated baggage system conveyor belts that some say can still be heard jamming up the works below the floor tiles.

Construction Apologist

While you might think that this position would only be necessary for a few months — a year, tops — it seems as though DIA is large enough at this point that the construction will indeed never be completed. As soon as one job is finished —ribbons cut, polite applause, all that — it’s apparently necessary to start another. And another. And...

Train Holder

The trains come every three minutes, allegedly, but somehow we’re still racing to catch it. Now you can have someone holding the doors for you and taking the grumpy looks from fellow passengers. But at least the airport has gotten rid of that cranky anchorwoman passively-aggressively letting everyone know that “you are delaying the departure of this train.”

Concourse Concierge

Many of us have been in a situation like this: We’ve unwisely come to the airport at or around mealtime, with no sandwich or snack we could get through TSA and then consume while waiting for our flight. So we’re forced to pay outrageous trapped-consumer prices on food. But from where? Is there a better and more appetizing place down the concourse, other than the couple of fast food options at its center? Who can keep up with what restaurant is open, and where? We could all use someone to warn us not to settle for that pre-made, un-dated tuna sub when there’s a Root Down option a concourse away.

Line Placement Representative

Of course, once you’ve found a place to get some pricey airport food, you have to wait your turn to order…or do you? If you’ve ever waited in the eternal-seeming lines for McDonald's or Panda Express, you’ll recognize the value of having someone to wait in line for you. Sit, people-watch, think about what you’d like to order, and leave the standing and waiting to someone else.

Lizard Kingdom Spelunker

There are times when even the most seasoned traveler might take a wrong turn and go through the incorrect door, suddenly finding themselves in the anteroom of the vast underground lizard kingdom that populates the DIA underworld. When that happens — and experts suggest that it’s not a matter of if, but when for frequent Denver travelers — you just might require extrication. That’s when an expert spelunker would come in very handy — especially one who speaks the sibilant tongue of the Lizard People.

Restroom Scout

It's nice that SkySquad can watch our stuff while we freshen up before boarding — but what we really need is someone to hunt down a decently clean stall so we can do our business without having to do a quick and insufficient wipe-down of every surface in there first. Sometimes it seems like DIA facilities need a decontamination shower at the exit.

Frontier Add-on Charge Mathematician

How much will that $29 fare on Frontier Airlines actually cost? It takes advanced math and probably three calculators and an abacus, but paying SkySquad to figure it out for you might be worth another $59.

Cross-Country Driver

Honestly, screw airports. Just skip the flight entirely and have someone drive you to your destination. Once you get off Peña Boulevard, you’re probably halfway there anyway. Road trip!