PORT ANGELES — Facing an indefinite delay in the restoration of commercial air service from Port Angeles to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Port of Port Angeles commissioners say they are considering their options.
SeaPort Airlines of Portland, Ore., notified Port of Port Angeles staff last week it is postponing the start of its scheduled air service from William R. Fairchild International Airport to Sea-Tac indefinitely, citing a pilot shortage.
Regularly scheduled air service from Fairchild to Sea-Tac was set to begin March 1.
“We are not giving up at all,” Colleen McAleer, port commission president, said during Tuesday’s regular meeting.
“It is a setback,” but we are “moving forward.”
Added Commissioner Connie Beauvais, “although this has been an unfortunate hiccup, I am still anxious and eager to move forward — maybe not expediently, but as quickly as we can to provide that scheduled air service.”
The port, with the aid of Forecast Inc. — a search firm based in Denver — has been seeking a commercial airline to provide service to Fairchild since Kenmore Air abandoned operations there in November 2014.
In October, SeaPort announced it would begin service with five 40-minute flights most days on single-engine, nine-passenger Cessna Caravan turboprop aircraft similar to those flown by Kenmore Air.
No contract was signed between the port and SeaPort, Karen Goschen, the port’s interim executive director, has said.
Instead, the port was in the process of negotiating a facilities lease, she said.
Now, the port is again consulting with Forecast Inc. to consider other airlines not chosen during the last round.
Moving forward, “the consultant that we had hired previously, Forecast Inc., [is] finishing up some potential work there” under the existing contract, McAleer said.
McAleer also has reached out to other communities facing similar dilemmas.
SeaPort also is postponing its planned service from Moses Lake to Seattle and Portland, Ore.
“I think having staff work with the staff at Moses Lake, because we have the exact same issue,” is a good step, McAleer said.
“I think just accepting that [Moses Lake] won’t have commuter service is not an option for that community, so I think that would absolutely help us” to work collaboratively.
“It is a system issue, and I think we can be a part of that solution together,” she said.
Commissioner Jim Hallett said that for now, there are alternate routes of transportation to Seattle in place, including by bus.
“While this is a challenge, we still have a lot to offer,” he said.
However, “we are going to be out in front of this,” he said.
“We may or may not succeed through conditions out of our control, but we are still going to work to improve the connections [of] this community to the outside world.”
In addition to canceling service in Oregon and Washington, SeaPort on Jan. 15 announced it also had canceled services in California, Kansas and Missouri.
SeaPort officials have said a shortage of qualified pilots has made the cancellations necessary.
Many pilots are lured away by better incentives at larger airlines, Tim Sieber, SeaPort executive vice president, said in a news release issued Jan. 21.
“We were initially convinced the problem was isolated and with a new recruitment and retention plan, we could turn it around,” he said.
“But it started to spread like an epidemic and the fallout was greater than we imagined.”
While a pilot needs only 1,200 hours to captain one of SeaPort’s nine-seat aircraft — as was planned for Port Angeles — and can be a co-pilot with 500 to 700 hours of flight experience, once a pilot logs 1,500 hours of flight time, the person is eligible for hire by larger airlines, Sieber said.
After losing a majority of its pilots, SeaPort was “forced to look at our business and make swift and tough choices, reducing our network to a more manageable size for the number of pilots we have currently,” Sieber said.
“It wouldn’t be fair to our customers or communities to attempt to start new service in Washington right now.”
Customers that have made reservations for Moses Lake, Port Angeles and Seattle will be contacted for a refund or can call 888-573-2767, company officials said.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
