Larger sign goes up at Fairchild Airport in Port Angeles — but no scheduled passenger airline service
Published 12:01 am Sunday, January 4, 2015
PORT ANGELES — The sign at William R. Fairchild International Airport is bigger than the old one, but otherwise, nothing at the airport has changed.
It still lacks scheduled passenger airline service.
The sign erected Dec. 29 at the entrance to the airport in Port Angeles was ordered in June, said Jesse Waknitz, environmental specialist for the Port of Port Angeles, which owns the airport.
That was several months before Kenmore Air stopped its flights to and from Port Angeles in mid-November, thereby canceling all scheduled passenger air service out of or into the North Olympic Peninsula.
The sign, which cost about $18,000, was made by Jackson Smart of Port Angeles out of sign foam, a high-density urethane foam.
Funding was included in the 2014 budget, Waknitz said.
It stands 5 feet tall and is 16 feet wide, replacing a smaller wooden sign that had been at the entrance for more than 20 years, Waknitz said.
When Kenmore Air Express stopped its commercial passenger flights for Port Angeles on Nov. 14, airline officials cited low revenue, primarily because of sagging ridership.
It was the only scheduled commercial service on the Peninsula. It carried passengers between Fairchild and Seattle’s Boeing Field. A bus shuttle carried passengers to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
City and county officials have met with Kenmore executives to find ways for the business to resume service.
A meeting in early December with Kenmore President Todd Banks was said to have been positive but inconclusive.
The meeting ended in a consensus that representatives of the county’s public and private agencies “need to get back together,” said Jennifer States, director of business development for the Port of Port Angeles, then.
