PORT ANGELES — The city of Port Angeles, Port of Port Angeles, Clallam County Economic Development Council and three chambers of commerce are all pledging assistance to Kenmore Air in order to maintain the only scheduled air service to the North Olympic Peninsula.
Because of decreasing revenue from all of its routes, Seattle-based Kenmore Air may not continue to fly to William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles if it can’t break even on its flights between the airport and Boeing Field in Seattle.
This was confirmed to the Peninsula Daily News on Feb. 28 by Craig O’Neill, Kenmore Air marketing director.
Todd Banks, Kenmore Air general manager, said after Thursday’s meeting that the company does not have a deadline or timetable for deciding if it will maintain its flights to Port Angeles after this year.
He said that the company is not planning to end Port Angeles flights at this time.
‘Be here forever’
“We’d like to be here forever,” he said. “We have to get some things figured out.”
The local plans to help the company maintain those flights were unveiled by Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Russ Veenema to three Kenmore Air representatives at a meeting Thursday in the port’s administration building in Port Angeles.
“The goal of today, and all of this, is to show you we are willing to work with you,” Veenema told the Kenmore Air representatives. “We’ll do whatever it takes.”
He mentioned several points:
• On March 2, the Port Angeles City Council allocated $10,000 in lodging-tax revenue to assist Kenmore Air in marketing its Port Angeles flights outside the Peninsula.
Veenema added on Thursday that the city also has promised to purchase 110 tickets for city employees every year — which is a contribution of about $9,000.
• The three Clallam County commissioners will consider allocating $10,000 in lodging-tax revenue for advertising, if a proposal is presented to them by the Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau.
• The EDC has promised to donate 50 television ads of 30 seconds each on Wave Broadband to Kenmore Air to market itself to Peninsula residents, Veenema said.
• The Port Angeles, Sequim and Forks chambers of commerce have each pledged to include Kenmore Air in more of their own advertising, he said.
• The port is promising to continue to waive landing fees for Kenmore Air, which it has done for the last four years. Those fees add up to about $23,000 a year.
Losing money
O’Neill told the Peninsula Daily News on Feb. 28 that the company has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars since June 2004 when it began flying between Port Angeles and Boeing Field in Seattle — providing free shuttle service between there and to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
O’Neill said that despite an expected bump in passengers during the six-week Hood Canal closure that will begin on May 1, the company doesn’t expect to break even on its Port Angeles flights this year.
During the bridge closure, Kenmore Air will offer seaplane service at Port Ludlow and Port Hadlock to Lake Union in Seattle.
It hopes to provide similar service in Port Townsend if a place for the planes to arrive can be created in time.
Local economy
Not maintaining Kenmore Air’s flights to Port Angeles would deprive the Peninsula of economic development and the port of $1 million of Federal Aviation Administration funding for capital projects for its airport, Veenema said.
“We all got a stake in this,” he said.
Veenema said that Kenmore Air needs between 1,500 and 1,800 more round-trip flights from Port Angeles a year to break even.
“The amount of additional fliers needed to make the Port Angeles route profitable is not out of reach,” he said.
A stakeholder group — made up of representatives of the port, city of Port Angeles, Clallam County and the Sequim, Port Angeles and Forks chambers of commerce, as well as local business owners — has been meeting since December to determine how it can assist Kenmore Air.
The group came up with a long list of recommendations to the company, which Veenema included in his presentation, that could attract more passengers.
A few examples are:
• Ensuring ground transportation to Seattle during weather delays. Veenema said local transportation companies are supportive of using their services to create an on-call program with Kenmore Air.
• Creating a better car-rental package on the Peninsula. Veenema said several local car-rental companies are interested in this recommendation.
• Developing a tie-in with Twilight tourism, the product of interest in a series of four teen vampire novels set in Forks.
• Advertising scenic flights and day trips to Seattle and the Peninsula.
• Promoting a one-way rental car option with Enterprise Rental Car to give passengers more flexibility in their travel plans.
Veenema said after the meeting that many of the proposals he mentioned can begin immediately.
Marketing
But, he said, there hasn’t been a determination on how the lodging-tax money that has been allocated or pledged will be spent other than it has to be spent on marketing to attract people from outside of Port Angeles and Clallam County in order to comply with state law.
“We don’t have all of the answers,” Veenema said after the meeting.
Veenema said that money could be spent on advertising with Seattle-area publications.
He said it is likely that city lodging-tax money will be distributed to Kenmore Air through a grant with the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, but no decision has been made.
O’Neill said after the meeting that Kenmore Air would be used to expand its advertising, likely in the Seattle area.
He said the company will not decrease the amount it is spending on advertising if it gets to use the lodging-tax money.
“It will not be used to replace what we spend anyway,” he said.
O’Neill said that Kenmore Air spends between $30,000 and $50,000 a year marketing its flights to Port Angeles.
Tim Brooks, Kenmore Air flight operations vice president, said there will be about 100 small airports that will lose air service this year in the United States.
He added that it is community efforts such as the one presented at the meeting that keep air service to small communities.
“I think this is the solution, and we are very grateful,” he said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
