This will never be the second airport
We are re-posting this after a Port of Seattle lobbyist’s recent public comments on their support of a ‘second airport‘ which, once again, stirred vain hopes that Paine Field might provide some ‘relief’ to SEA. That is not what anyone in the room was saying.
A presentation to the Commercial Aviation Work Group from from Paine Field Airport Director Josh Marcy
Why this matters for Sea-Tac
Although Paine Field is planning for some expansion it is a drop in the bucket compared with the regional capacity needs. Bear in mind that the types of routes it will accommodate will not necessarily be those that can be ‘swapped’ with SEA. In other words, it will be additive to regional needs, it will not be a substitute for /any SEA traffic.
We find it troubling whenever the Port of Seattle expresses support for second airports. Although we also believe the region will need more capacity, the Port knows that the public automatically interprets ‘second airport’ as being the same as ‘relief at SEA’. We wish they would stop even implying that because they know it is not true and they know how desperately the public wants to believe it. At the very least, they should temper any such statements with this small caveat: “No increase in capacity at any regional facility will ever slow the expansion of SEA.”
The Second Airport myth
Both the Paine Field Airport Director, the PSRC, WSDOT, the FAA, and SEA have made it crystal clear for decades: The amount of traffic at SEA will in no way be reduced in any way by any increase in capacity at nearby airports.
There will be so much new demand, much of it ginned up by the Port of Seattle, that, no matter what happens in any regional transportation construction, the growth of SEA will continue on an uninterrupted trajectory. In fact, increased capacity at nearby facilities may even contribute to more SEA traffic.
Believing otherwise is as silly as believing that, because Starbucks opens a new coffee hut a few miles away it will reduce the amount of business at other area Starbucks. This is called ‘poaching’ and it does not happen. When a new franchise opens, new business is developed which adds to the total amount of demand for the product and service.