PORT ANGELES — The City Council unanimously approved allocating $10,000 in lodging-tax revenue Tuesday to help Kenmore Air attract more passengers to fly to Port Angeles.
Craig O’Neil, Kenmore Air marketing director, told the Peninsula Daily News on Saturday that the company may end its flights from Boeing Field in Seattle to William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles if it doesn’t break even this year on those flights.
Kenmore Air has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last four years since it began flying to Port Angeles, he said.
The company provides the only regular flights to and from the North Olympic Peninsula.
It has not been determined how the money from the city will be spent, but it will not be in the form of a direct check to Kenmore Air, City Council member Karen Rogers said.
Rogers, who is also the chairwoman of the lodging tax advisory committee, said the money could be used in the form of a marketing grant that the company could apply for through the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The intent is to use the money to market Kenmore Air’s flights to Port Angeles — its only stop on the Peninsula.
O’Neil said on Saturday that the company already spends tens of thousands of dollars on marketing its Port Angeles flights every year.
Nathan West, city economic and community development director, said the chamber of commerce, Clallam County, city of Port Angeles and city of Sequim staff will meet with Kenmore Air representatives on March 12 to present a plan.
Figures were not available Tuesday on what those other public entities intend to contribute.
West said the plan, once developed, will be brought back to the City Council for approval.
“The purpose is to come up with a business plan on how to market the community,” Rogers said.
“I think that is the critical piece right now.”
Despite an expected bump in passengers during a planned six-week closure of the Hood Canal bridge that will begin May 1, the company expects to have about the same number of passengers on its Port Angeles route in 2009 as it did in 2008, O’Neil said.
In 2008, 23,500 passengers flew the route. The company needs 27,500 passengers annually to maintain service in the long term, according to a city staff memo to the City Council.
The city’s lodging tax revenue comes from a 4 percent room tax on hotels, motels and bed-and-breakfast establishments.
According to state law, the money can be spent only on tourism infrastructure or to promote events and projects with the goal of attracting people to Port Angeles from outside Clallam County to visit and, preferably, stay overnight.
The Port of Port Angeles already waives Kenmore Air’s landing fees, which amount to about $20,000 a year, Bob McChesney, port executive director, said on Saturday.
Kenmore took over the role of providing flight service in and out of Port Angeles after Horizon Air, citing low ridership and annual losses of $1.5 million, ended its Port Angeles service in January 2004.
Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
