“Greatest Public Benefit” is a concept that has been devastating for airport communities. It means that, as they say on Star Trek, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one”. The discussion of compensation and mitigation is always the lowest priority. This makes any commercial airport a de facto sacrifice zone.
The Commission agreed that a “no action” option was not possible given that their mandate was to make some decision. This is in contrast to previous ‘second airport’ commissions (eg. Flight Plan 1989-1992), where the decision was always to “make no decision”.
The final recommendation is to pursue a “green field” option. The main rationale, whether explicit or not is that this option is least likely to face legal and legislative opposition.
However, Senator Keiser makes a comment that these locations are not favored by commercial air carriers. The two green field proposals mention “general aviation” far more than “carrier” operations.
The recommendation also assumes that the SAMP and expansion at Paine Field will be 100% of planners’ desires.
Again, commercial carriers are not as enthusiastic about moving operations to Paine Field if there are any options for increasing capacity at Sea-Tac. And residents of Everett and Mukilteo have shown themselves to be remarkably effective at opposing any expansion.
All the incentives for commercial carriers, both passenger and cargo, are to double down on increasing capacity at Sea-Tac Airport, by any means necessary.
Clare Gallagher will be taking over as Port of Seattle representative.