PORT ANGELES — So close, yet so far.
Again.
Port of Port Angeles officials were hoping to announce in the next few weeks that an airline would resume scheduled commercial air-passenger service at William R. Fairchild International Airport, port Executive Director Karen Goschen said Tuesday.
The North Olympic Peninsula has been bereft of scheduled passenger airline service since November 2014, when Kenmore Air, which flew to Seattle, closed up shop at Fairchild.
But the prospective carrier, which Goschen would not name, is reviewing its existing operations and instead hopes to begin negotiating with the port in the next six to nine months to provide flights to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Goschen told three dozen Port Angeles Business Association breakfast meeting participants, which included port Commissioners Connie Beauvais and Steve Burke.
It’s the same carrier the port has been negotiating with since at least Feb. 22, when port commissioners said they hoped to learn by August if the company would make a go of it in Port Angeles, port Airport and Marina Manager Jerry Ludke said in an interview Tuesday.
Goschen said during her multifaceted presentation on port operations that she got the disappointing news Monday while talking with an official with the company who said an internal review of airline operations is wrapping up.
She was told the company, which has a new president, needs to focus on other issues “before they start launching a new route,” Goschen said.
Six to nine months
Goschen said she learned “it would be six to nine months before they could commit” to a new route.
Goschen said in a later interview that chances are “better than 50-50” that air service will resume at Fairchild, although she could not estimate when.
The port was recently awarded a federal $200,000 Small Community Air Service Development Program grant to attract a commercial passenger airline operator to Port Angeles.
“I was hoping to announce good news if I received good news from the scheduled conference call,” Goschen said in an email Tuesday.
“I was hoping that having been awarded the Small Community Air Service Grant would help move negotiations along, that the readiness of the carrier to make a commitment would be sooner rather than later.”
Goschen said passenger service would likely be offered on nine-passenger aircraft.
That is of the kind run by Portland, Ore.-area-based SeaPort Airlines Inc., which had planned to start up Fairchild-Sea-Tac service March 1 with several daily flights.
Instead, SeaPort filed for reorganization under federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws, citing a pilot shortage.
Lincoln Park trees
In another airport-related issue, Goschen said a new airport master plan is being written in a lengthy process to address trees in Lincoln Park that obstruct the approach to the airport’s main runway.
The Federal Aviation Administration, sensitive to the residents’ concerns and potential lawsuits, is requiring “a whole new master plan” to look at every option that’s available, including the expensive alternative of building a new runway, Goschen said.
The FAA says a new runway must be an option “because there is not strong community support for removal of the trees,” she said.
Composite recycling
Some participants at the meeting said there was a lack of information on the activities of the nonprofit Composite Recycling Technology Center (CRTC), which is being established with port and other public funding.
Port funding to the CRTC includes $1.35 million in 2015-17 for economic development services.
The CRTC, in a building shared by Peninsula College for classes and lab space, will recycle carbon fiber scraps that can be fashioned into products ranging from solar panel frames to ski poles, computer cases to snowboards.
Kaj Ahlburg, a former investment banker, said plans he has seen are short on details such as projected revenue, costs and timetables.
“I would expect to get that information, and as an investor, we are not able to get that,” he said.
Bob Larsen, CEO of the CRTC, said in a later interview Tuesday that the nonprofit will move at the beginning of August into a port-owned building at 2220 W. 18th St.
“We will be announcing some really big developments in the not-too-distant future,” he said.
“We are so early in the evolution of our company, we are just getting into moving into the building and setting things up.
“Please be patient, and give us some time.
“We are getting there, and we pledge to be as transparent as possible,” he said, adding that the CRTC must keep some information proprietary to protect it from competitors.
Larsen said a ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for August was canceled in favor of a “celebratory event” after the Nov. 8 election.
There have been delays in obtaining production equipment for the facility, he said.
Larsen will make a quarterly report on the CRTC to a combined port commissioners’-Clallam County commissioners meeting at 9 a.m. Monday in the commissioners’ hearing room at the county courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St.
He urged residents to attend.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
