Yakima Airport Director Says Sea-Tac Flights Could Return in November

Jun. 19—Community support and a tentative agreement with Alaska Airlines mean the popular early-morning and late-night flights between Yakima and Seattle could return in November.

Yakima Air Terminal Director Rob Hodgman said that the Yakima City Council is scheduled to consider a contract restoring those flights at its July 5 meeting.

"The start date is not 100% locked in, we're still finalizing everything," Hodgman told the Yakima Herald-Republic this past week. "But in kind of a good faith commitment between the city and Alaska Airlines, the (flights) start date would be Nov. 17, which is right before Thanksgiving."

Since Hodgman, a longtime state aviation official, was hired by the city in March, he has been working to restore the early-morning flight to Sea-Tac and the late-night return flight to Yakima.

Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air reduced its schedule between SeaTac and airports in Yakima, Walla Walla and Wenatchee to one flight in each direction in early September of last year, with Yakima's flights arriving and departing in the early afternoon.

This spring, Hodgman and Yakima County Development Association Director Jonathan Smith have been working with local governments, individuals and businesses to solicit donations toward a $500,000 air service development fund, which would provide a minimum revenue guarantee to the airline as it restores the Yakima-Sea-Tac flights.

The fund is nearing its goal, and Hodgman is optimistic the flights will be restored this fall. Many business owners and residents have requested the early departure in particular because it helps them make connections to other destinations that leave Sea-Tac in the morning.

"That's going to be the fullest flight, I anticipate, and that's good," Hodgman said. "The question in my mind is how many people are going to fly in on the late-night flight. We can't know until it happens, so I'll be curious to see: do people want to come back on the 1 o'clock flight (from Sea-Tac) or the 11 p.m. flight?"

The $500,000 fund

Smith, who is managing the air service development fund, said on Thursday, June 15, that it has $330,000 in signed pledges and "another $100,000 or so" in verbal pledges.

These amounts include $125,000 from the city of Yakima, $100,000 from Yakima County and $10,000 from the city of Union Gap, with these pledges coming from American Rescue Plan Act federal funds.

The remaining pledges come from private businesses and community members, Smith said.

Hodgman said industry partners have been responding to the goal of restoring the Sea-Tac flights, and he was hopeful the pledges would hit the $500,000 goal by the July 5 Yakima City Council meeting.

When the City Council approved the $125,000 in ARPA money for the air service development fund on May 16, Yakima Assistant City Manager Rosylen Oglesby said the $500,000 is an "overage" fund to cover costs and potential losses of re-establishing the flight over the next year.

If Alaska/Horizon does need any of the $500,000 for that purpose, or uses only part of the guarantee money, it could be used to add more flights in the future, Oglesby said.

Flights resume for other airports

Horizon Air has added early-morning arrivals and late-night departures to the Wenatchee and Walla Walla airport schedules beginning Sept. 7, exactly one year after those flights were eliminated due to pilot shortages and the phasing in of new aircraft.

Patrick Reay, executive director of the Port of Walla Walla, told the Walla Walla Union Bulletin that an agreement approved May 2 with Alaska Airlines to restore the flights was conditional upon the port ensuring a minimum revenue guarantee of $500,000 for the carrier.

A similar agreement was reached this spring between Alaska Airlines and the Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority, which oversees operation of Wenatchee's Pangborn Memorial Airport.

"We originally hoped to get a September start date (for the restored flights), but Alaska Airlines/Horizon needed to keep moving forward with their schedule," Hodgman said.

"Both Wenatchee and Walla Walla have a port district, a taxing district that we don't have, that were able to help them cover the $500,000 minimum revenue guarantee if the donations from the community were not quite sufficient," he added.

Hodgman noted Yakima and Spokane are the only Washington communities with commercial service airports that are not in a port district.

"It puts us in a distinct disadvantage in situations like this," he said.

Hodgman said he's appreciative of Alaska and Horizon officials for their flexibility on restoring Yakima's flights, and noted a limited number of additional Yakima-Sea-Tac flights could be scheduled in September to accommodate the Yakima Valley's hop industry.

"(Alaska officials) offered to schedule, if they could, four or five flights between Sept. 18 and 29 for our hop industry partners. We're trying to work together on that," Hodgman said. "Alaska understood that this is a pretty big deal for our region — hop buyers coming in not only from around the country, but from across the world."

Survey says: Viva Las Vegas

The tentative restoration of early-morning and late-night Sea-Tac flights might not be the only additions to the Yakima Air Terminal schedule.

From late April through the end of May, the city conducted an online poll to gauge interest in additional destinations Yakima Valley residents would like to see from their local airport.

There were more than 3,700 responses to the poll, the city announced Wednesday, and Las Vegas was the top choice of new destinations.

The poll's first question asked respondents to choose among five possible destinations for a direct flight to and from Yakima, and of the 3,706 answers, Las Vegas received 915 votes, or 25%. The Nevada destination narrowly edged the 912 responses for Sea-Tac.

Among the other three options, Los Angeles received 663 votes (18%), Phoenix received 657 votes (18%) and Salt Lake City received 474 votes (13%). There were 85 respondents who skipped this question.

The survey's other question was open-ended, asking respondents to name any other destinations not listed in the first question. The results, shown in the adjacent graph, still included three of the cities named in the first question — including 160 more votes for Las Vegas.

"Historically 86% of Yakima Valley residents connect through Seattle to other destinations, many of these business travelers," Hodgman said of the poll results. "However, the Las Vegas destination is likely a leisure destination.

"The reality of today's air service marketplace is airlines require minimum revenue guarantees to start new routes," he added. "With that in mind, the Las Vegas route would likely need traveler financial support."

Hodgman encouraged community members to contact YKM at [email protected] if they are interested in supporting a Las Vegas flight from Yakima and/or if they would like to see a poll to gauge public interest in funding a minimum revenue guarantee for Las Vegas flights.

"If they want a flight or two flights a week to Las Vegas — which people say they do, according to the poll numbers — we're going to have to get some community support financially to provide a minimum revenue guarantee," he said. "That's kind of the common operating practice in the airline industry right now."

If community interest exists in the minimum revenue guarantee, Hodgman said, the community could begin pursuing Las Vegas flights from the Yakima airport next spring.

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