Commercial flights not ruled out, not ruled in

Right now, no airline seems interested in flying out of Paine Field.

What is happening, however, is the latest episode in a debate that stretches back 40 years or so on whether the airport should have commercial-airline service.

"We don't have anybody who's knocking on the door right now," said Dave Waggoner, the airport director.

Nevertheless, Waggoner would like to hear from people about the possibility of such service.

This latest public discussion of commercial service is taking place against a backdrop of change at the airport, where Boeing's new 787-model jetliners are being assembled next door and an aviation center/museum is to open this year.

Waggoner also has been giving presentations for several months about the future of Paine Field as part of public-outreach efforts. He estimated he has made about 10 such appearances.

That has led Mukilteo and Edmonds to express concern about possible airline service there.

"They're not supposed to be encouraging commercial aviation at Paine Field," Mukilteo Mayor Don Doran said in January.

Waggoner said he's not advocating the service, and no decisions have been made.

"We're in the seek-to-understand phase, not the to-sell-a-proposal phase," he said.

The questions also are not new. Periodic studies have been done for more than four decades about how to handle increasing commercial air traffic in the Puget Sound area, including the possibility of using a former Air Force base at Moses Lake for a new airport and connecting it to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by high-speed trains.

Most of the suggestions have been ruled out. A third runway at Sea-Tac emerged as the preferred choice and is being built.

Yet Paine Field, which dates to 1936 and is a former Air Force base, inevitably comes up in such discussions. Waggoner said he has talked to "dozens" of airlines about possible Paine Field service since he became director in 1992, but nothing has happened.

The current flurry of discussions dates to studies done under the previous Snohomish County executive, Bob Drewel, that looked into ways to help the county's economy, Waggoner said.

Dozens of ideas were considered then, he said, including regional air service at Paine Field. An air-service market study concluded that Paine Field could support regional commercial air service, mostly to Western cities such as San Francisco and Las Vegas. A survey of 786 businesses indicated about 60 percent might use Paine Field flights.

The final step in the work plan — public outreach — began when the current county executive, Aaron Reardon, decided to start public discussions about airport use, Waggoner said.

"Aaron told me we should start the public outreach now," he added.

That led Waggoner to develop a slide show. It opens with an animated view of the soon-to-open Future of Flight aviation center and moves on to aerial photos of the airport and discussions of noise, street traffic and an agreement worked out by the University of Washington's Office of Environmental Mediation in 1978. That accord, which included local cities and the county, concluded that "there is no clear justification for providing additional large-transport air-carrier or air-cargo facilities at Paine Field."

The mediated agreement has been analyzed several times since then. The County Council rejected a 1989 proposal for expanded freight service and in 1994 reaffirmed a commitment to use the airfield for general aviation — small-plane use.

Waggoner's presentation also goes into a detailed noise analysis and says noise from quieter modern jetliners would barely reach Highway 99 south of the airport.

These issues probably could be debated — or litigated — eternally, Waggoner said, but he explained that the intent of the presentations is to try to avoid "he said, she said" debates and to generate usable data.

"They want to see a fact-based analysis," Waggoner said of information that may eventually be brought before County Council members, who oversee airport operations.

It's also not clear how an airline could use Paine Field.

"I liken it to Interstate 5," said Waggoner, where if a person has a license and a registered car, he is allowed to drive on the freeway without seeking permission from local agencies.

"The same is true of the nation's runways," said Waggoner, explaining that Paine Field has received about $30 million in Federal Aviation Administration money in the past 10 years and that it's largely up to the FAA to decide whether airlines could safely use the field.

At the same time, it's unlikely an airline could start commercial service without receiving approval from the county, which owns the property and buildings, and controls the services that an airline would need.

Waggoner said he does see commercial service as a possibility at Paine Field.

"I think it's likely to happen over the next three, five or 10 years," he said. "I've been talking to people and dealing with this issue ever since I got here, and it was an issue long before I arrived."

Peyton Whitely: 425-466-7030 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com