Commercial flights out of Paine Field?

EVERETT — Hank Robinett drives 40 miles to Sea-Tac airport to catch flights to Palm Springs, Calif., where he vacations from his real-estate development job.

The drive irks Robinett, 73, especially when he knows that Paine Field, used for decades by Boeing to test and service jetliners, has the capacity to offer flights to West Coast destinations.

As the region grapples with congested highways, Snohomish County's population swells, and King County's Seattle-Tacoma International Airport pursues building a third runway to accommodate more passengers, Robinett can't believe commercial flights aren't available at Paine Field now.

"You'd have to be an idiot if you didn't see that there are over 1.2 million people that this airport could service," he said, pointing to Snohomish County's population of more than 630,000, along with the residents of North King County, and Island and Skagit counties.

Airlines have looked into bringing service to the airport in recent years, officials said. Aloha Airlines considered flights to Hawaii, for example, and Big Sky Airlines weighed service to Spokane and Olympia. Horizon Airlines almost launched service to Portland in 1999 but backed out.

Now, Paine Field is poised to launch a county-funded market study, the first in 25 years, on the prospect of commercial flights at Paine Field.

Such service isn't unprecedented: During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Alaska Airlines flew out of Paine Field, and San Juan Airlines ran flights to Portland and Vancouver, B.C., in 1988 and 1989.

What's missing from Paine Field, commercial-flight supporters and Airport Director Dave Waggoner have said, are a passenger terminal, a committed airline and security.

What's been missing from the county for years, Robinett said, is far more troubling: unified support for the idea among county and local politicians. If anything, there's been unified resistance.

But missing out on commercial flights, Robinett said, means missing out on economic development.

The economic case

Assuming that research determines that business people and local residents would use the airport, the economic case for Paine Field commercial flights is straightforward, said Deborah Knutson, the president of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council. The council has created a task force to help with a commercial-flight market study, funded by the county.

"I hear from companies (considering moving to the county), 'So, when are you getting service up here?' " Knutson said.

"There is interest out there from potential users," she continued, noting that Robinett, an economic-council board member, has succeeded at pushing the issue within the county. "What we've said on this side is that someday this will happen, and it will make market sense. It could be in two years; it could be in 20 years."

Over the long term, Waggoner said, the airport's master plan allows for commercial flights, mostly likely on airlines that could ultimately run 25 to 50 daily outbound and inbound flights combined at Paine Field, compared with the 1,000 or more flights a day at Sea-Tac. On an average day now, 500 planes take off or arrive at Paine Field, at least 10 percent of which are nonpassenger jets.

The airport's master plan envisions four scenarios for commercial flights, ranging from 10-seat planes taking passengers to regional destinations such as the San Juan Islands to low-cost carriers that carry passengers on 110- to 160-seat jetliners to destinations in Western United States or even cross-country.

The market study's determination will give a preliminary idea of what type of airline might consider Paine Field, as well as what type of terminal the airport would need to provide. For smaller aircraft, a temporary terminal that could be leased for about $5,000 a month would be possible, but larger carriers might require a $10 million to $20 million terminal.

Possible customers abound: aerospace suppliers flying on Boeing business, travelers to the new Everett and Lynnwood conference centers, and visitors to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., and a proposed local NASCAR track.

The politics

The political case for commercial flights is trickier. Though the subject has arisen more frequently in recent months, County Council members, County Executive Aaron Reardon and former County Executive Bob Drewel have discussed the potential for commercial flights largely in guarded and qualified terms.

They point to a strategy document from the 1970s known as the "mediated role determination" about the airport's intended purpose. Cautious of the concern of airport neighbors, some have said they'll withhold support unless this year's market study shows a demand for flights.

The reticence makes some sense. Apart from the business benefits of commercial flights, some residents argue that bringing passenger aircraft to Paine Field would violate an understanding between officials and the public dating to the 1970s and worry that it would usher in Paine Field's conversion to a busy airport such as Sea-Tac.

During 1978 and 1979, the public and a mediation panel developed recommendations about the airport's use. The report recommends that the airport encourage Boeing practice flights, private aircraft, and charter and commuter service on small jets but discourage cargo and military flights.

The report is silent about larger passenger jets but acknowledges the possibility of commuter and passenger flights.

A few years later, the Puget Sound Regional Council examined the capacity of airports in the region and called into question Paine Field's role. Leaders asked whether it should remain as is, become a secondary or satellite airport, or morph into a major general-aviation airport with Sea-Tac-type capacities.

The role determination and regional-council study stoked residents' fears over dramatic changes at Paine Field.

Robinett said the language of the mediated role determination gives politicians an excuse for passivity. He said attorney Ed Level, who worked with the airport during the drafting of the report, gave him a letter last year stating that the role determination is not legally binding and is subordinate to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations that allow commercial flights at the airport.

Nonetheless, a group of Mukilteo homeowners called Save Our Communities has for years worked to fend off commercial flight and uses the mediated-role language as part of its argument. The group first raised objections in the mid-1990s, when the Puget Sound Air Transportation Committee recommended allowing commercial jets at Paine Field. That threat dimmed in 1997, when the FAA approved a third runway at Sea-Tac.

The group still has about $52,000 in the bank and is ready to take up the fight again, said Mukilteo City Councilwoman Cathy Reese, a board member of the group.

About 25 people attended Save Our Communities' annual meeting last month, down from the thousands of members Reese said the group once had in Mukilteo and beyond. Reese said 13 Snohomish County cities passed resolutions in the mid-1990s saying they opposed Paine Field becoming a "major airport."

Reese said that even if the mediated role determination isn't legally defensible, it's politically enforceable.

Political conservatism?

Discerning who is bullish, bearish or tolerant on commercial flights at Paine Field is difficult.

Reardon, for instance, said he supports using commercial flights as a tool for business recruitment and economic development — in aerospace, for instance — but not if the aim is to create minimum-wage jobs or bolster tourism. He added that one airline told him that if a market were here, an airline would have already started service.

County Council Chairman John Koster, R-Arlington, supports looking into it.

"The last thing I want to do is run over the top of people who live out there by the airport and say, 'We're just going to do this,' " he said.

Councilman Dave Gossett, D-Mountlake Terrace, said he hadn't decided whether to support commercial flights at Paine Field.

"One of the things that I think we really need to know before we go into this is: What exactly are we likely to get?" Gossett said. "I think we need to go into this with open eyes."

"It may be an idea whose time has come," said Koster, adding that service at Paine Field in some ways is a "no-brainer." It's just more convenient.

But Koster questioned whether the county could afford it if it meant spending $10 million to $20 million.

A rebuff and the third runway

State Sen. Dave Schmidt, R-Mill Creek, said he spent several weeks before this year's Legislature convened talking to local politicians about supporting commercial-flight research in the county. Though it's a county decision and the airport is a county airport, he said he wanted to help by asking for state funding to pay for the research.

Last month, he proposed a bill requesting $100,000 in state funding for the county's market study and said he believed he had the support of Reardon and other council members before his office distributed a news release.

However, Schmidt's announcement alluded to Paine Field competing with Sea-Tac and King County for tourism and other dollars, making many Snohomish County politicians cringe at the memory of public outcry decades earlier. Some said they opposed his bill, and he resubmitted a revised version.

Knutson said Schmidt's support was well-intentioned but came at a bad time because it confuses the public about the third-runway debates at Sea-Tac.

Third-runway opponents from King County have glommed onto the Paine Field concept, though, further complicating the politics around flights at Paine Field. They say adding commercial flights in Snohomish County is a better option than adding to traffic congestion and other problems at Sea-Tac.

"We've said the smart thing to do is to make a provision for and open another regional airport, and that would take the pressure off of Sea-Tac," said Normandy Park City Councilman Stuart Creighton, who since 1990 has been fighting Sea-Tac's third-runway plan as part of the Airport Communities Coalition.

The dialogue, though sprawling, is part of the process, leaders say. Waggoner said the county's first step is to complete its market study to find out what airlines and aircraft would come, then pursue an engineering study about the type and cost of terminal. Finally, the airport and the county would conduct public hearings.

Still, some citizens say they're wary.

Harold Quinby, 74, who lives off Harbour Pointe Boulevard in Mukilteo, is accustomed to fighting airport expansion.

Before moving to Mukilteo in 1989, he lived near Sea-Tac for nearly 30 years. The noise, traffic and other impacts of the airport got to him, so he and his wife moved to Mukilteo after he retired, he said. But about two years after their move, the couple learned Paine Field might be opened to commercial flights.

Determined to unite Snohomish County against airport expansion, Quinby drove to his old neighborhood and took photos of abandoned houses, a grocery that had closed and been converted to a thrift store, and chain-link fences strung across formerly residential intersections.

Quinby took his photos to politicians in Snohomish County to gain support. When officials in the early 1990s were considering making Paine Field a regional airport, Quinby drove around the county in his pickup and posted signs opposing expansion.

But he's not worried about commercial flights this time.

"I just don't see this as a workable situation up here," he said.

Save Our Communities Vice President Wayne Elsaesser said he's worried about the Paine Field market study.

"I guess I'm a little bit concerned with the idea of studying growth of passenger traffic at that airport," he said. "When does that go from studying to encouraging?"

Jane Hodges: 425-745-7813 or jhodges@seattletimes.com

Emily Heffter: 425-783-0624 or eheffter@seattletimes.com