Taxpayer funds keeping Ore. airline flying - for now

PORTLAND, Ore. – At the Portland International Airport, one of the country's best airports, the hustle and bustle of checking in, checking luggage and going through security can take hours.
  
Contrast that with getting aboard a SeaPort Airlines flight, which involves no TSA security and no long lines.

That’s what SeaPort Airlines want you to see. The small planes are modern and comfortable, the crew members friendly and helpful.

SeaPort Airlines serves just four cities from Portland: Seattle, Astoria, Newport and Pendleton.
   
The Seattle route is popular and growing, but the flights to Newport and Astoria are sometimes canceled - because there are no passengers.
    
On the day KATU News took a flight to Astoria, there were just two people aboard – a reporter and photographer. There were also two pilots in the cockpit but no other crew.

SeaPort flies small, single engine, turbine-powered planes that can take off and land at smaller airports.

Most of SeaPort Airline’s flights consist of one or two passengers, a bunch of empty seats and a beautiful view out the window.
    
So how can SeaPort afford to run all of their nearly empty airplanes? By using government subsidies.
    
Astoria and Newport applied for and received $3.5 million in state transportation money to pay for air service. That money comes from Oregon Lottery funds.

The Pendleton leg is helped out by a $1.5 million federal subsidy.
    
When KATU News landed in Astoria, there was just one person taking the flight back to Portland.
 
“Oh, I think we need it because so many of us don't drive that far anymore,” an older woman waiting to board the plane said.
    
In the first three weeks of operation, 250 people flew between Newport, Astoria and Portland.
    
SeaPort claimed $130,000 in government subsidies over that same period, which averages out to more than $500 per paying passenger.

SeaPort’s actual tickets are cheap. KATU News flew to Astoria for $75 one-way.
 
“They can fly from Newport to Portland for $50 - that's cheaper than two days of parking in the [PDX] garage over here,” SeaPort CEO Kent Craford said in Portland near the SeaPort terminal. “They're figuring that out, but we've got to get the word out.”
    
Oregon has given SeaPort and the cities of Newport and Astoria two years to make the service sustainable. Then the subsidy runs out.
 
“Well, we're just six weeks in, so no business is going to be an overnight success,” Craford added. He likened the progress of the airline to a marathon, not a sprint.

SeaPort is not alone in subsidizing short-hop flights to small cities. Similar, small airlines in South Dakota and Montana also subsidize flights and at costs greater than SeaPort’s subsidies.

Small airlines have been subsidized across the nation since the 1970s.

In Astoria, Larry Pfund and the rest of the city’s Port Commission lobbied hard to get the SeaPort service.
    
Horizon Airlines gave up on the route a decade ago, and they were flying about 1,000 people a month.
    
Seaport officials said that if it can get that many people flying again, it won't need taxpayers to subsidize its trips.

SeaPort is just getting off the ground, but for now, every time a plane takes off, it's taking hundreds of dollars in state money with it.