North Olympic Peninsula air passengers operations are flying high these days, the result of the temporary Hood Canal Bridge closure.
Passenger travel aboard Kenmore Air between the William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles and Seattle has about doubled since the Hood Canal Bridge closed for six weeks May 1 to replace the structure’s east half.
Craig O’Neill, Kenmore Air marketing director, said the number of passengers flown between May 1 and Wednesday totaled 2,040, compared with 1,050 for the same period in 2008.
O’Neill said the number of passengers booked to fly between May 1 and June 15 as of Wednesday, including those who have already flown, is 4,870, compared with 2,370 for the same period in 2008.
Increased number of seats
“So you can see in both cases that we are trending very close to 100 percent ahead of last year for comparable periods,” he said.
“We decided in advance of the bridge closure to roughly double the number of seats offered each day to and from Port Angeles, and this has proved to have been a good estimate of demand.”
O’Neill said the company was taking new reservations every hour, so the final numbers won’t be known until June 15.
“However, if the current trends continue, we will expect that number to come in the 6,500 to 7,000 range,” he said.
He said the passenger counts are for one-way segments, meaning that a single person flying from Port Angeles to Seattle and back again counts as two.
In Jefferson County, Kenmore has flown 250 people on its special Port Hadlock/Port Ludlow seaplane runs to Lake Union in Seattle — offered only during the Hood Canal Bridge closure — since May 1.
The planes land on Port Ludlow Bay near Port Ludlow Resort and in the bay near the Inn at Port Hadlock.
A total of 550 seats have been booked through June 15, O’Neill said.
“The pace of these bookings is increasing daily as more people learn about the service and perhaps encounter the frustrations of alternative means of transportation,” he said.
The seaplane trips have split passengers between Port Ludlow and Port Hadlock, where Kenmore is landing, he said, “which kind of surprised us.”
Kenmore officials expected to fly more people to Port Ludlow, he said, “but I think what we’re seeing is people going to Port Hadlock to get to Port Townsend.”
Charter services
The bridge closure has been a boon to Goodwin Aviation Co. charter service based at Jefferson County International Airport, which has seen business triple since May 1.
“We’re averaging about 16 passengers per day,” said Steve Goodwin, the charter air operations owner and lone pilot.
“For this time of year, it has easily tripled. We normally average about five a day.”
Goodwin flies between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. seven days a week and, until the bridge opens in mid-June, he said he is not flying anywhere else except Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“If the bridge stays on schedule and goes full period — if all goes as it is going — I will likely move 500 people,” he said.
Goodwin flies six round trips a day with three seats available. Since May 1, he said the most he has flown in one day is 23.
Although Rite Bros. Aviation Inc. in Port Angeles has picked up a routine freight flight to Tacoma since the bridge closed, passenger use has been disappointing so far, said owner Jeff Well.
“We’ve done a few more, but it’s not nearly as significant as I was thought it would be a year or two ago when I was planning this,” he said.
Well emphasized that his on-demand charter service — the service has no regular runs — will fly anywhere within the region that a customer wants to go. It isn’t restricted to a Seattle destination.
“We’re an air taxi. We’re just like a taxi, except we’re in the air,” he said. “What you’re getting with us is that you pick the time and place.”
Rite Bros. operates three planes that carry three people each and another that carries five.
The cost of a flight is based on distance, not number of customers, so a fully loaded plane costs each passenger less than a flight carrying only one person, he pointed out.
Well thinks he may get more business as drivers tire of the long loop around the Hood Canal on U.S. Highway 101.
The State Patrol announced last week that during the first week after the bridge closed, traffic on Highway 101 around the Hood Canal increased from an average of about 3,000 vehicles per day to about 5,310 daily.
For reservations or more information, phone Kenmore Air at 866-435-9524 or see www.kenmoreair.com, phoneGoodwin Aviation at 360-531-1727 or see www.goodwinaviation.com or phone Rite Bros. Aviation at 800-430-7483 or see www.ritebros.com.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor Leah Leach contributed to this story.
