May 25—Alaska Airlines sister company Horizon Air will reduce flights at the Walla Walla Regional Airport to just one arriving and one departing daily starting Sept. 7 due to a pilot shortage.
Scheduled flights, which include two arriving and departing times daily, will remain as they are for the next three months. After Sept. 7, the daily departure flight will leave at 1:15 p.m. This will cut the early morning flight available now.
The daily service schedule will be a 11:30 a.m. departure from Seattle, arriving in Walla Walla at 12:34 p.m. and departing back to Seattle at 1:15 p.m.
An email from Alaska Airlines said staffing challenges are impacting the flight schedules for regional airports, but the company hopes more flights can be added when conditions improve.
Walla Walla airport Manager Jennifer Skoglund said it is a system-wide problem and that other regional airports will be affected by the same flight reductions.
The pilot shortage is the main driver for the flight reductions, and that is having a drastic effect everywhere, Skoglund confirmed.
She also noted that part of the cause for the pilot shortage was associated with the transition from the Q400 Turbo prop, currently in use, to the Embraer 175 Jets.
Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air recently announced the discontinuation of their Q400 turboprop plan with the transition to a modern Embraer Jet 175 by the end of 2023.
In step with that transition is the need for current pilots to be removed from their regular flight schedules to train on the new aircraft, further contributing to the lack of available pilots.
"This will be a painful hit to our community," Skoglund said. "This will reduce our load factor by 50%."
The two departing flights per day averaged 75-80% of passenger capacity with each plane carrying up to 76 passengers when full.
Skoglund said she and her staff are in conversations with the airline on finding a different time of day for a departing flight other than the proposed 1:15 p.m.
Alaska Airlines hopes that this is only temporary, according to Skoglund.
"They told us this is only for the short term," Skoglund said, "We have been told that it should only be through February 2023 or a little longer into the spring of 2023. We have every intention to get back to two flights a day again."
Yakima and Wenatchee regional airports also will see a reduction in daily flights as will Great Falls, Montana, and Victoria, British Columbia.
Alaska Airlines has no plans to discontinue service to any of the communities it serves, according to the email, and Skoglund said she was told that they will continue to operate in Walla Walla.
Max Erikson can be reached at [email protected].
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