TUPELO, Miss. — This Southern city wants to evict from its airport the same carrier the Port of Port Angeles says may connect the North Olympic Peninsula with Seattle.
A SeaPort Airlines executive vice president concedes the airline has had trouble serving Tupelo but blames problems on a pilot shortage it says is worse in the South than in the Northwest.
An official of the Port of Port Angeles, which seeks to restore scheduled air passenger service to William R. Fairchild International Airport, sides with the airline.
And the director of the airport in Coos Bay/North Bend, Ore. — which has service similar to that proposed for Port Angeles — calls SeaPort “reliable, on time and a great provider of service.”
SeaPort, based in Portland, Ore., will decide this month if it will offer service from Port Angeles to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with several Cessna Caravan flights a day. Each single-engine Caravan can carry nine passengers.
Alaska Airlines also may seek to serve Port Angeles, probably with one flight per day by a 76-passenger Bombardier Q400 twin-engine aircraft.
Meanwhile, SeaPort’s service to Tupelo has been “dismal,” said Cliff Nash, executive director of the Tupelo Regional Airport, with “a horrendous cancellation rate.”
$2.5 million subsidy
After months of dissatisfaction with SeaPort, the Tupelo Airport Authority entered a “gentleman’s agreement” that the carrier would ask today for release from its $2.5 million annual contract with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The federal agency subsidizes service to Tupelo and more than 100 other regional airports. Its contract with SeaPort is set to expire in September 2016.
Nash said the problem is partly due to a scarcity of pilots whom small carriers like SeaPort train only to lose them to larger airlines’ larger paychecks.
SeaPort’s original agreement was to provide 30 weekly round-trip flights from Tupelo — 18 to Nashville and 12 to Memphis — but the airline has cut them to 14 total weekly flights. Both Tennessee cities offer connections to national airlines. They are 90 minutes’ to two hours’ drive time from Tupelo.
Worse was SeaPort’s inability to meet what Nash called “the push” early in the day to connect with flights to other regions.
Pilot shortage
Tim Sieber, SeaPort executive vice president, told the Peninsula Daily News on Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013 boosted its requirement that airline co-pilots must have logged at least 1,500 hours in the air to qualify, where once it required 250 hours.
The change set off a hiring frenzy by national airlines, which simultaneously found their accustomed source of former pilots shrinking.
“The nationals started grabbing everyone they could from the regionals,” said Jerry Ludke, Port of Port Angeles airport and marina manager, who is directing the search for air service.
“I think that is probably what’s going on with SeaPort in [Tupelo]. SeaPort had to make some decisions on where to put its pilots.”
Sieber confirmed the dilemma, saying he had more planes than pilots even while “a lot of communities like Port Angeles are knocking on our door.
“As we look at Port Angeles, is it the best use of the limited amount of pilot hours we have available every month?”
Working in Port Angeles’ favor, Sieber said, is “a different demographic” among West Coast pilots that make them likelier to stay in their jobs.
“They are more rooted,” he said. “They have kids and stuff. They own homes. It tends to be a different pilot demographic than in the South.”
SeaPort’s headquarters are in Portland, Ore., but it has bases of operations in Juneau, Alaska; San Diego; and Memphis.
Besides these cities, SeaPort serves Skagway, Haines, Gustavus and Hoonah, Alaska; Pendleton and North Bend/Coos Bay, Ore.; Sacramento, Visalia, Burbank and Imperial/El Centro, Calif.; Salina and Great Bend, Kan.; Kansas City, Mo.; Dallas; Harrison, Hot Springs and El Dorado, Ark.; Muscle Shoals, Ala.; and San Felipe, Mexico.
Parallels to PA
And Tupelo.
There, regional carrier Silver Airways served northeastern Mississippi until it pulled out in April 2014, similar to several small airlines that once served Port Angeles, which most recently lost Kenmore Air service last November.
Now Tupelo says it wants to issue requests for new proposals, hoping a national airline will serve the city of 36,000 people, roughly twice Port Angeles’ size.
Only 74 passengers boarded the 27 flights SeaPort flew from Tupelo last month, Nash said.
Still, SeaPort was pleasant despite the problems, Nash said.
“They’ve stood before the board and didn’t make excuses,” including one marketing representative Nash said who “took both barrels [of criticism] in the chest. They’ve been very professional about it.”
Moreover, they were kind to their patrons, he said, especially older passengers.
“I’ve had a lot of people upset that a flight was canceled, but I’ve had a lot of people — especially elderly people — who have called and expressed great appreciation for the care and all the assistance they were afforded when they traveled,” Nash said.
And Theresa Cook, executive director of the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport that serves Coos Bay/North Bend, told the PDN that since 2012, SeaPort had canceled only one flight for lack of a pilot and one due to mechanical problems.
SeaPort flies four times daily from Coos Bay to Portland.
“We’ve had a very good experience with SeaPort Airlines,” Cook said.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
