Southwest Airlines plan opposed
SEATTLE — Southwest Airlines’ proposal to shift its operations from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport four miles away to King County-run Boeing Field is facing some strong opposition.
Both Democratic and Republican County Council members have balked at the plan, citing noise pollution and other concerns.
The director of Sea-Tac Airport has cried foul, saying the low-cost carrier would saddle other airlines with a bigger share of the airport’s $4 billion renovation project than they had bargained for.
And the former chairman of a regional air transport committee says he doesn’t think the plan will fly with federal authorities.
Southwest says per-passenger fees have nearly doubled from $5 a decade ago and are expected to top $15 in the coming years at Sea-Tac, which has forced it to look for a cheaper way to fly in and out of Seattle.
The Dallas-based airline has said it would pay less at Boeing Field, which serves private planes, cargo jets, and Boeing Co. commercial and military aircraft operations, but no precise figures have been disclosed.
“If we didn’t think there would be dramatic savings, we wouldn’t have approached the county,” Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told The Associated Press on Friday.
The airline initially approached King County in the fall of 2003, but has yet not submitted a formal proposal. “We don’t have a deadline. We want it sooner rather than later,” McInnis said.
King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, voiced support for the plan, calling it an “extraordinary opportunity” for economic stimulation and low-cost air travel when he disclosed negotiations with Southwest in a letter to the council Tuesday.
Southwest operates at other secondary airports, like Midway in Chicago and Love Field in Dallas, which charge less and are less congested, allowing for faster turnarounds between takeoffs and landings. Because Southwest specializes in short- and medium-range trips to its passengers’ final destinations, it isn’t concerned about connections to other flights, McInnis said.
Boeing Field’s runway can handle full-sized jets — in fact,all of Southwest’s Boeing 737s were delivered from the aircraft company’s flight center there. But the airport would need substantial upgrades to accommodate commercial passenger traffic.
“There is no terminal, no parking and no freeway ramps to handle the traffic,” said Bob Wallace, the former chairman of a regional air transportation committee that helped plan Sea-Tac’s third runway, now under construction. “So, I say, this is incredibly unlikely to happen.”
Wallace told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer he thinks Southwest’s proposal won’t gain Federal Aviation Administration approval because of conflicts with flight patterns at Sea-Tac and McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, about 40 miles to the south.