Airports flying high
Economic development often hinges
on having quality air service
by Jill FitzSimmons

Here’s one of the first questions that comes up when a business is looking to move into an area: Does the community have an airport?
“It’s a big question,” said Priscilla Heistad, executive director of the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Island County Economic Development Council. “It comes up frequently. People want to know how they’re going to link up to the rest of the world.”
But what happens when the answer is no?
For four years, Oak Harbor has been without an airport. Harbor Air previously owned the airport on Monroe Landing Road. The airline had about six scheduled daily flights into Seatac. However, Harbor Air ran into serious financial trouble and closed the airport facilities in spring 2001. Since then, the airport has been caught up in legal issues.
Heistad can point to at least one business that didn’t come to the area because there’s no working airport. A software firm, which would have created 120 jobs, cited the lack of a commercial airport as a reason for not locating here, Heistad said.
“In our area, that’s a lot of jobs,” she said.
The EDC is in the beginning stages of a feasibility study that asks what it would take to reopen the airport. Among the questions to answer are if the airport can be run by a public-private partnership and how heightened security requirements following Sept. 11 will affect reopening costs.
For now, Heistad sounds frustrated when talking about how Oak Harbor must compete with communities of similar size that have an edge – they actually have airports.
“It’s like looking across the street at the other kids eating ice cream, but you can’t have any,” Heistad said.
Airports facilitate economic growth in a community. They have long been considered economic engines because of the business they spark, enable and attract.
In fact, Art Choat, director of aviation for the Port of Bellingham, goes so far as saying there are few people in Whatcom County unaffected by his community’s airport. Airports are important to a community’s lifeblood, he said.
“(Bellingham International Airport) touches more people than all port facilities combined on an annual basis,” Choat said. “The dynamics of an airport touch everyone. It’s a backbone for a lot of things.”

The economic impact touches many
The 2001 Aviation Forecast and Economic Analysis Study by the Washington State Department of Transportation shows that all airports in the state combined generate 171,311 jobs, more than $4 billion in wages and more than $18.5 billion in annual sales output.
The study also shows that even the state’s smallest airports – general aviation airports used by pilots flying only single-engine airplanes – generate more than $275 million annually.
There are about 18 airports and seaplane bases in Whatcom, Island, Skagit and San Juan counties. Most of these airports are categorized as general aviation airports. The largest of the area’s airports are Bellingham International (200 based airplanes), Anacortes (60 based airplanes), Skagit Regional in Burlington (160 based airplanes) and Friday Harbor (118 based airplanes).
The state’s study breaks these airports down and determines their economic impact on surrounding communities. The study made the following conclusions in 2001:
• Bellingham International Airport generates 800 jobs and $15.2 million in wages. It has a $54.5 million economic impact on its community.
• Anacortes Airport generates 114 jobs and $2 million in wages. It has a $7.3 million economic impact on its community.
• Skagit Regional Airport generates 179 jobs and $3.2 million in wages. It has a $11.6 million economic impact on its community.
• Friday Harbor Airport generates 392 jobs and $7 million in wages. It has a $26.2 million economic impact on its community.

John Shambaugh, the state’s senior aviation planner, said an airport’s direct and indirect benefits accrue throughout a community in a variety of ways. While airports are a good location for industrial development and the rapid transport of people, cargo and mail, they also affect the public in many other ways, Shambaugh says.
Recreational pilots fly into and out of airports. Farmers use airplanes to spray crops. Flight schools and student pilots use airports. The airport is used in border patrol, wildfire fighting and search-and-rescue missions. And, perhaps most important, having an airport in a community allows for air ambulance service and the transportation of blood products, pharmaceuticals and donated organs.
“It provides a whole host of benefits to a community,” Shambaugh said.
“In a lot of ways, the airport is a small, little business park,” agreed Steve Hedrick, director of operations and facilities for the Port of Anacortes.

Future looks bright for local airports
Most people using the airports in Northwestern Washington fall into one of three categories, local experts say. Those are recreational fliers, student pilots and people traveling on business. The largest group is the business traveler, the experts agreed.
At Skagit Regional Airport, officials are planning for a 2 percent annual growth rate for the next several years. Patsy Martin, the Port of Skagit County’s property development manager, sees growth especially in the number of business airplanes visiting the airport. Skagit Regional can accommodate most small to medium-sized business jets, she said.
When looking to attract businesses to the area, the Port of Skagit County targets aeronautical users, Martin says. The port wants to take advantage of the recruiting tool it has in the airport. Martin also points out that airport land is more valuable than other industrial land. Industrial lands owned by the Port of Skagit County are valued at $4 a foot; however, airport land is $5 a foot, she said.
The Port of Friday Harbor Airport on San Juan Island serves about 5,800 passengers a year, or about 20,000 flights. The airport has 100 hangars and still has a waiting list of about 35 people for hangars, said Steve Simpson, executive director of the Port of Friday Harbor.
Simpson sees some business people on the island using the airport more than once a day. He expects the airport, which was ranked this year by Washington CEO magazine as one of the top 10 airports in the state, to have 1.5 percent annual growth rate for the next several years.
The Port of Friday Harbor Airport is currently looking into a large construction project for the near future. However, that project would not mean larger aircraft would be landing at the airport, Simpson said. The project would only put more distance between the runway and taxiway to create a safer operating environment, as requested by the FAA, Simpson said. A decision is expected by year’s end on that project, he added.
Although he anticipates more activity at the airport, Simpson also expects the airport to remain its current size. The community has expressed it wants a small airport connecting it to the mainland. To veer from that would “estrange us from our community,” Simpson said.
At the Port of Bellingham, Choat also reports a modest 3 percent growth rate at Bellingham International Airport for the next five years. However, Choat admits he really is expecting much more. He hopes to see the airport eventually grow to the size of Spokane International Airport.
“We are expecting a lot more growth,” Choat said.
The Port of Bellingham is hoping to reach an agreement soon with Delta Airlines to offer nonstop flights from Bellingham to Salt Lake City. The airport, which is on pace to have 250,000 flights into and out of the airport by year’s end, can accommodate the national airline without even “hiccupping,” Choat said.
But Delta isn’t the only airline Choat has spoken to about coming to Bellingham. The port is also trying to talk with other airliners to join Horizon Air and Allegiant Air at the Bellingham airport.
“We have the capacity to handle a lot more air carriers,” Choat said.
Allegiant joined the Bellingham airport last year. It’s flying 150-seat passenger jets four times a week to Las Vegas. With the addition of Allegiant, 5,000 more passengers fly into and out of the airport per month, Choat said.
Allegiant is turning around the way airlines look at smaller airports such as Bellingham International, Choat said. When the airline joined the airport in 2004, it serviced 11 cities. Today, that number is up to 20, Choat said. The airline is interested in non-hub airports such as Bellingham, he added.
And more local travelers also are interested in flying out of these non-hub airports, Choat said. Heavy congestion on Interstate 5 makes smaller airports a viable alternative, he said.
“There is a big need for more capacity other than Seatac,” Choat said.
In anticipation for growth, the Bellingham airport is in the first year of a five-year, $6 million improvement plan. Those improvements will be made to runways and taxiways as well as the enclosure of an open baggage area, the addition of restrooms and a facelift that will give the airport more of a Northwest theme, Choat said.

Airports spark business
If the airports themselves are projecting only modest growth, privates businesses built up around the airports are not so modest when talking about their futures and the impact of airports.
Mike Freeman, owner of 48 Degrees North Aviation in Anacortes, recently built six box hangars and 19 smaller hangars near the Anacortes Airport.
When Freeman moved to Anacortes in 1990, he put his name on a list for hangars at the Anacortes Airport. He was number 54. It was well known that the only way to get a hangar was if someone died, he said.
All his hangars were filled within a week of Freeman obtaining the building permit, he said. “Our hangars will increase the cash flow in Anacortes,” Freeman said.
In Whatcom County, Bellingham International Airport played a key factor when the Department of Homeland Security decided to open the first of five planned air and marine facilities that will increase security along the U.S.-Canada border, said Mark Beaty, field director of the Bellingham Air and Marine Branch. Bellingham International not only has the infrastructure that the AMB needed, but port staff have been supportive and proactive on the AMB’s behalf, Beaty said.
Eventually, the AMB will employ 70 law enforcement officers, pilots, aircrew and mission support personnel from the office of Air and Marine Operations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Most of these people will come from out of the area, Beaty said. However, the AMB does impact the local economy. For example, all fuel is bought locally, a $1 million project will renovate the building where the operation is based, and a long-term goal is to build a entirely new facility at the airport, Beaty said.
The Bellingham AMB was established before any of the other planned operations because of known smuggling activity along the northern border, Beaty said. Washington has more smuggling activity, from narcotics to terrorism-related incidents, than any state west of the Mississippi River, he said. Beaty expects to be operating at 24 hours a day, seven days a week within two years.
Tim Lewis, who co-owns Corporate Air Center in Burlington, operates the largest business at Skagit Regional Airport. With 13 employees, Corporate Air Center offers aircraft management and maintenance as well as sales, flight training and piloting services. The air center has seen a 35 percent growth rate in the last six years. Lewis is planning for an expansion of his business with the completion of a new facility.
“I have no doubt in my mind it is going to grow,” Lewis said. “Hopefully, we’ll see 20 employees in a couple of years.”
The future isn’t in offering commuter flights to Seattle from Burlington but rather in offering another option for the business people in the smaller communities, Lewis said. Companies in Skagit County need a way to stretch their wings, he said.
“The airplane allows that,” Lewis said.
The airlines service only 150 airports in the nation, Lewis said. But there are 5,800 general aviation airports like Skagit Regional. The more restrictions put on the larger airports after Sept. 11, the more important these smaller airports will become, he said.
Lewis views airports like infrastructure. It’s as important to a community as the roads, he said.
“Unfortunately, it gets ignored a lot,” he adds.

Encroaching populations threaten airports
All across the nation, the biggest threats to airports are not steadily increasing fuel prices or the addition of stricter flying regulations. Rather, it’s the growing population encroaching upon airport lands, Shambaugh said. New housing developments gobble up industrial lands, and then, often times, new homeowners begin complaining about such issues as noise.
And Washington is no stranger to this. The population is growing in Northwest Washington, and Skagit, San Juan, Whatcom and Island counties are some of the most popular areas in the state.
More private airports than public have closed in recent years, Shambaugh said. Landowners suddenly see they can sell off that land to developers, he said.
Anacortes is one example of a community that has encroached so much upon its airport that community conflict has resulted. If you look at the airport’s aerial photo in 1964, there are no developments close to Anacortes Airport. Today, residential subdivisions border the active airfield.
A few years ago, after some airport neighbors and the city raised environmental and land use issues, the federal government and state stepped in, declaring Anacortes Airport as an essential public facility because it is a part of the local and state economy. It also acts as a gateway to the San Juan Islands.
The relationship between the port, the city and some residents has been strained. Furthering complicating the situation is the fact that the port has accepted over the years millions of dollars in grant money from the Federal Aviation Administration. So, the airport is obligated to follow FAA guidelines that call for upgrading the airport.
Most recently, the Port of Anacortes awarded a $1.1 million contract to build fences and remove and top trees at the airport. The project will include installing a perimeter fence and an operational fence as well as removing trees that are too tall and trimming those in a wetland area. Most of that money is being refunded by the FAA.
Hedrick admits he has to tread lightly when talking about the airport in his community. But the airport wants to be a good neighbor, he said. Pilots flying into and out of the airport adhere to “fly friendly” rules. That means they fly straight out over the water when taking off. Also, there is no crack of dawn or late-night flying.
When various port officials in Northwest Washington were asked to project their future airport growth, only Hedrick hesitated. He did warn that if a community doesn’t have economic diversity, and the local economy is hit hard by some factor, that potential for recovery is limited.
Freeman, who has helped form a pilot’s organization that sued to get the port to remove those dangerous trees, said while neighborhoods can destroy an existing airport, you don’t often see community members defend an airport.
“Rarely will you see a development bulldozed for the sake of a runway,” he said.
He opened his hangar operation knowing that other related businesses would not be as well received in the community.
“To open a flight school would probably not be well received,” he said.
With this agreement and the FFA’s $1.1 million grant, the airport may stand the chance of being around longer, Freeman said.
“I think the airport has a longer half-life now,” he said. “In the future, someday it may be gone because of development.”