Jul. 22—Alaska Airlines has added some additional flights between Yakima and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to its September schedule and officially announced the resumption of daily early-morning outbound and late-night inbound flights at the Yakima Air Terminal.
The additional daily flights are scheduled to resume Nov. 17 after the Yakima City Council approved an agreement with the airline on July 5.
Since that time, more local pledges have been made to a $500,000 minimum revenue guarantee fund required by the airline to restore the flights.
A news release from Alaska Airlines states that "partnerships between Alaska and community leaders" in Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Yakima prompted the airline to resume additional flights between those communities and Sea-Tac this fall.
Last September, Alaska subsidiary Horizon Air — which operates the regional flights to and from Sea-Tac — reduced its flight frequency to the three Eastern Washington cities due to a pilot shortage and the phasing in of new aircraft.
"We've seen regional air service change over the last few years," Kirsten Amrine, Alaska Airlines vice president of revenue management and network planning, said in a news release.
"To ensure smaller cities remain connected, we have to think creatively," Amrine added. "Small communities are extremely important, so working collaboratively with community leaders is key to ensure we're able to continue providing the service for which we are known."
Alaska's news release said additional flights between Sea-Tac, Walla Walla, Wenatchee and Yakima would be loaded into its schedule this week and the resumption of two daily flights in each direction from those cities would begin this fall.
Flight details
While the flights and their exact times were not loaded onto Alaska Airlines' online flight schedule as of Friday morning, the contract requires the departure to Sea-Tac to leave Yakima before 8 a.m., and the return flight to Yakima to leave Sea-Tac after 8 p.m.
The one-year contract for additional flights begins Nov. 17 and concludes Nov. 17, 2024.
These flight times, combined with the current midday arrival and departure at Yakima Air Terminal, allow more convenient connections to other destinations via Sea-Tac, airport director Rob Hodgman said.
As negotiations were underway on restoring the flights, Hodgman also was hopeful a handful of flights in the latter half of September would be added to the Alaska/Horizon schedule to accommodate the Yakima Valley's hop industry.
As of Friday morning, six days of additional flights were available between Yakima and Sea-Tac on Sundays, Mondays and Fridays the weeks of Sept. 17 and Sept. 24.
On those dates, Horizon flights from Sea-Tac will arrive in Yakima at 2 and 7:35 p.m., and departure Yakima for Sea-Tac at 2:40 and 8:15 p.m.
Hodgman hoped the additional flights would provide options for the influx of visitors to the region for hop harvest.
Restored early-morning and late-night flights at Walla Walla and Wenatchee begin Sept. 7, as those two communities and the port districts that help fund the airports reached agreements with Alaska Airlines in the spring. A $500,000 minimum revenue guarantee also was required for those airports.
Guarantee fund update
The amount of pledges to Yakima's minimum revenue guarantee fund stood at $418,000 as of Friday morning, reported Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Yakima County Development Association.
More than half of the pledges have come from local governments, which used American Rescue Plan Act federal funds for their contributions. The city of Yakima pledged $125,000, Yakima County pledged $100,000 and the city of Union Gap pledged $10,000.
Pledges from Yakima Valley agencies, businesses and an anonymous individual comprise the rest of the minimum revenue guarantee money, Smith said.
At the Yakima City Council's July 5 meeting, City Manager Bob Harrison reported five Yakima Valley businesses have made $25,000 pledges: Zirkle Fruit Company, Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, Washington Fruit Growers, John I. Haas Company and Borton Fruit Company.
Pledges of $5,000 have been made by the Central Washington State Fair, Goodman Place Apartments, HLA Engineering and Yakima Valley Tourism, Harrison said.
Other pledges reported by Smith on Friday morning were from Comprehensive Health, McKinney Glass, Neighborhood Health and Wilkinson Corp.
Smith added there are 10 to 15 additional businesses that have expressed interest in pledging to the minimum revenue guarantee fund.
Harrison told Yakima City Council members on July 5 that he had "a pretty high degree of confidence that we're going to hit that $500,000 number."
If the amount pledged and collected falls short of $500,000, Harrison said the city and Yakima County "would look to partner have on how we could close that gap."
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.
Harrison and City Attorney Sara Watkins noted earlier this month that if Alaska/Horizon does not need any of the $500,000 for that purpose, or only uses part of the guarantee money, it would either be returned to donors on a prorated basis or could be used toward additional flights in the future.
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