PORT ANGELES — Kenmore Air Express, one of two airlines serving William R. Fairchild International Airport, acquired all its rival’s Port Angeles operations, bought one of its planes and will drop four daily round trips later this week.
Renton-based Kenmore becomes the only air passenger service carrier between Port Angeles and Seattle’s Boeing Field and will fly seven round trips, down from a combined 11, starting Wednesday.
It will honor existing San Juan tickets and keep the fare at $59 one way and $110 round-trip, a Kenmore spokesman said Saturday.
The deal ends San Juan Airlines’ 16-month presence at Fairchild.
The carrier’s counter in the airport terminal was closed Saturday, deferring customers to the Kenmore counter nearby.
Anacortes-based San Juan began flying to and from Port Angeles on Jan. 7, 2004, the morning after Horizon Air halted its money-losing service between Port Angeles and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Kenmore Air Express began flying routes out of Port Angeles the following June.
Until then, Kenmore was noted for its floatplane service out of Lake Union and Lake Washington in Seattle.
“We are confident that this agreement will provide the residents and business community of Port Angeles with the same high quality service that they have come to expect from both San Juan and Kenmore,” said Clyde Carlson, San Juan president.
“The combined breadth of daily flight times will provide passengers with more convenient scheduling options and ideally less-waiting time at Sea-Tac.”
Carlson on Saturday called the transition with Kenmore “smooth,” and said it came about when it clearly didn’t make sense to have two carriers in Port Angeles.
“The Port Angeles market is our least lucrative market, you could say,” Carlson said. “With fuel prices going up, it gets pretty costly to operate those runs.
“One carrier in that market could be more profitable and could stay there longer.”
As part of the agreement, Kenmore Air Express purchased a nine-passenger Cessna Grand Caravan turbo-prop aircraft from San Juan, boosting its Port Angeles-service fleet to three planes.
Kenmore also took on San Juan’s only full-time employee in Port Angeles, Carlson added.
San Juan Airlines provided six round-trip flights daily between Port Angeles and Boeing Field, and Kenmore made five round-trip flights.
On Wednesday, Kenmore will unveil its new schedule, which will offer customers a total of seven round-trip flights to Seattle, said Jason Lee, Kenmore’s marketing director.
