PORT ANGELES — After SeaPort and Horizon fell by the wayside, Port of Port Angeles officials are working a third unnamed airline option as they try to revive commercial passenger service at Fairchild International Airport by the 2016 holiday season.
Port commissioners said at their work session Monday that they hope to learn by August if air service to and from Fairchild to Sea-Tac International Airport can resume with an airline whose name they would not divulge.
Interim Executive Director Karen Goeschen said she would not disclose the identity of the airline under a state law disclosure exemption for potential port tenants.
Jerry Ludke, the port’s airport and marina manager, would only say the third option was one of three airlines: Anchorage, Alaska-based PenAir, St. George, Utah-based SkyWest, and Kenmore-based Kenmore Air.
‘Courting process’
Ludke said if one of the airlines pursues service at Fairchild, “there will be kind of a courting process there” that would include visits by company officials to the North Olympic Peninsula.
Portland, Ore.-based SeaPort Airlines Inc. had planned to start up Fairchild-Sea-Tac service March 1 before announcing Feb. 5 that it had filed for reorganization under federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws, citing a pilot shortage.
In the running
Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, also had considered flying the Port Angeles-Seattle route.
Kenmore Air was the last commercial passenger airline to serve Fairchild before abandoning service in November 2014.
Kenmore, which flew to Boeing Field where a shuttle took passengers to Sea-Tac, cited decreasing ridership and revenues and increasing costs after 10 years of service that started when it took over from Horizon.
Ludke said port officials expect to contact SeaPort in early June after the company completes a reorganization plan that includes cutting other U.S. routes to focus on the Pacific Northwest.
Port Angeles and Moses Lake “remain at the top of the list” of potential Sea-Tac connections for SeaPort, Ludke said at the port meeting during a presentation of the port’s “2016 Goals and Initiatives Action Plan.”
Forecast Inc. of Denver, Colo., operating under a $48,300 contract with the port, produced an “Air Service Plan” last year that listed five airlines as possible carriers:
■ SeaPort and Kenmore were listed as offering three, four or five daily flights with nine-passenger Cessna Caravan turboprop aircraft.
■ Horizon offered a 76-passenger Bombardier Q-400 twin-engine turboprop with one or two flights a day.
■ SkyWest offered a Bombardier CRJ700 jet that seats 70 passengers and would fly once or twice a day.
■ Penair Airlines would fly 34-passenger Saab 340s with two flights daily.
“SeaPort will have a chance in June or July to see where they are at, and hopefully, we will hear something from this third airline,” Ludke said.
Pilot shortage
SeaPort had announced in mid-January that it was postponing the start-up of service, citing 17 available pilots and the need for 54 to maintain its schedule, according to the Salina (Kansas) Journal.
The airline announced earlier in January that it canceled service in several states including Kansas and Missouri.
“We knew they had this issue with the pilot shortage,” Ludke said after Monday’s meeting.
“They thought they had it solved, and then it went down from there.”
Ludke said the same incentives that were offered to SeaPort will be offered to the airline that is currently interested in providing service.
They include fee waivers at Fairchild and Sea-Tac.
The Port of Port Angeles also will waive all landing and terminal fees the first year and half of the fees the second year.
The port also would contribute $6 per outbound seat to market the passenger service, with the amount dropping to $3 a seat after the first year.
Sea-Tac also would waive up to $225,000 in annual ground fees for each daily flight.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.