Could the letters "YKM" one day be as prominent as the "SEA" seen on labels attached to so many suitcases of Pacific Northwest airline passengers?
The city of Yakima's offer to dramatically expand the capacity and role of the local airport has been frequently discussed during the past month by state officials, lawmakers and members of a committee charged with reducing congestion at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and addressing more air passenger and cargo demand in the state.
Yakima's willingness to be part of that discussion distinguishes the Central Washington city from just about every county and municipality west of the Cascades. Negative responses from the other locations could prompt state officials to adjust their criteria for selecting a regional airport site and restart the process.
But for all the enthusiasm shown by Yakima city officials — and residents who strongly supported the idea of an expanded airport in a city-sponsored poll — a few things stand in the way of making Yakima Air Terminal the next Sea-Tac.
The most critical issue is how to move thousands of passengers each day more than 140 highway miles, over a 3,000-foot mountain pass.
"We have to figure out a way to move 55,000 people a day to Yakima ... that would be a stretch," said Warren Hendrickson, acting chair of the state's Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission, during an online question-and-answer session Feb. 1.
"The Cascade ridgeline does serve as a significant geographical barrier."
Perhaps the most surprising part of the statewide airport discussion is that outside of its location, Yakima's airport meets many of the criteria the CACC is considering, especially as the three finalist sites for its recommendation in Pierce and Thurston counties face numerous obstacles.
Hendrickson and 13th District State Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, both nonvoting members of the CACC, reviewed how the siting panel was created by the Legislature and since then has narrowed down an original list of 18 possible sites to three finalists to augment Sea-Tac.
The state's busiest airport is expected to max out its capacity at roughly 67 million annual passengers in 2030, CACC and state Department of Transportation officials have said. By 2050, air passenger traffic in the Seattle region is expected to increase to 94 million annual passengers, leaving a capacity shortfall of 27 million passengers, The Seattle Times reported.
Additionally, air cargo traffic through the region is expected to more than double, from 610,000 tons per year before the pandemic to 1.4 million tons in 2050.
Initial criteria used by the CACC to site a new airport included avoidance of military facilities and needed airspace; locating it within a 90-minute drive of metro Seattle; and a site containing at least 3,100 acres with the capacity for two runways large enough to handle all passenger and cargo-hauling aircraft.
Legislation creating the CACC specifically excluded placing the airport in any county with a population of 2 million or more. In other words, it cannot be in King County, Hendrickson said.
The two Pierce County sites and one Thurston County site are undeveloped greenfields. Although they have the space for a large regional airport, they face significant road blocks in terms of existing airspace traffic, proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, and environmental and land-use concerns voiced by nearby cities, counties and tribal governments, Hendrickson said.
"I see low probability for (recommending) the three sites," Hendrickson said during the Feb. 1 question-and-answer session, hosted by WSDOT. "Each one has infrastructure issues, a lack of public support and a lack of government support."
Dent, speaking with the Yakima Herald-Republic on Jan. 31, also doubts any of the three finalist sites will be suitable for a regional airport.
"Things just didn't gel the way they should have (with CACC finalists). We have an extraordinary amount of people upset — and rightly so," Dent said.
"I do empathize with the people in Pierce County who thought they would have an airport in their backyard. ... It's the wrong place, it just doesn't fit," he added. "We're trying to put a fire out while also looking to the future."
Yakima's attributes
Yakima city officials and City Council members believe their airport could be part of a solution to the CACC's woes, and formally requested consideration "as the single preferred new airport location in the state" in a Jan. 3 letter to Hendrickson, other CACC members and the Washington State Department of Transportation.
The letter noted that Yakima's airport, with the three-letter code YKM, already has a 7,700-foot linear runway, which could be expanded to 13,000 linear feet with the purchase of approximately 1,000 acres of available agricultural land abutting the airport.
"The acquisition of this abutting property would enable the investment and development of the necessary terminals, hangars and businesses that play a crucial role in supporting a new state airport," the letter states.
It also notes "ample land is available within a 5-mile radius of the airport, which is prime for developing long-term parking, rental cars, hotels and other industrial and commercial uses."
The Yakima airport, also known as McAllister Field, was established in 1926, and its first runways were built in the 1930s. Today the site covers 825 acres, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The current passenger terminal opened in the 1950s, and today its southeast-northwest runway is 7,604 feet long, allowing Boeing 737 aircraft to take off and land.
Its long, east-west orientation stretches from 16th to 48th avenues, and much of its western end is surrounded by open land. There has been some recent commercial development between the airport's south boundary and Ahtanum Road, including the Sozo Sports Complex at 2210 S. 38th Ave.
Yakima's one attribute that distinguishes it from any other airport site considered thus far is the support of area residents and local officials.
"Most importantly, our community strongly supports this significant public investment in Yakima," the city's Jan. 3 letter concludes.
The recently conducted poll on Yakima airport expansion supports the city's statement to the CACC. The voluntary online poll, open from Dec. 31 through Jan. 30, received 1,404 responses, and 83% of those (1,163 respondents) said they "strongly support" expanding YKM. Another 5% (69 respondents) stated they "somewhat support" the idea.
Overall, there were 152 out of 1,404 respondents (10.8%) who either "somewhat oppose" or "strongly oppose" an expanded Yakima airport, according to poll results.
A second question, "What concerns, if any, do you have about this proposed expansion of the Yakima airport," received 1,137 responses, and nearly half (535) had no concerns, with many suggesting expansion would be good for the local economy, the city reported.
Other replies included traffic and congestion (236 responses, or 20.7%), noise (162, 14.2%), sufficient expansion (143, 12.6%), airport connectivity (94, 8.3%) and two answers receiving 80 responses, pollution and environmental impact and roads and infrastructure (7% each). More than one answer was allowed for this question.
Hendrickson, acting chair of the CACC, said the panel has received more than 24,000 comments on the three site finalists since they were revealed in October, and three general concerns have been voiced:
—Build to meet future capacity in an environmentally sustainable way.
—Expand existing airports.
—Maximize travel by rail.
Hendrickson noted that Yakima would meet the first two concerns, but increased passenger rail access across the state is beyond the scope of his commission to build and fund.
Having previously lived in the northeast part of the county, Hendrickson mentioned Amtrak's high-speed Acela train, which serves a heavily populated corridor between Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston. At its peak, before the COVID pandemic, the train moved an average of 9,500 passengers a day.
Even if high-speed rail between the west side and Yakima were built, Hendrickson wondered if it would be economically feasible for most air passengers, given the high costs to construct the system.
And that would be on top of the cost to build the airport itself. A completely new site, such as the finalists identified in Pierce and Thurston counties, would cost at least $13.8 billion if built today, or an estimated $24.6 billion in 2043, the midpoint of the construction timeline, Hendrickson said.
There's no cost estimate yet for the upgrades that would be required in Yakima.
An online CACC meeting in March will further address the airport site issue. Dent said he and other legislators are considering bills that could expand the radius within which a regional airport could be built. That change, among others, could bring Yakima into consideration.
"The biggest obstacle that we'll have is how we would get 50,000-plus people a day to and from the airport," Dent told the Herald-Republic, noting he had similar questions for Yakima City Manager Bob Harrison and several City Council members as they visited Olympia this past week.
"I admire their ideas and their vision — it's can you make it work? That's the challenge," he added.
As someone from Moses Lake who has a long background in aviation, Dent was asked if the large Grant County International Airport is an option.
"All the state's airports were considered at start of CACC process," he replied. "Grant County has a lot of industrial work going on there. ... it doesn't really fit the profile for a passenger airport.
The Grant County airport used to be Larson Air Force Base. It is now used for heavy jet training and testing by Boeing, Japan Airlines, the U.S. military and other air carriers. Moses Lake also has a small municipal airport.
"With any Eastern Washington airport, we still have to get the people there. There's only so many people flying from Eastern Washington, and they're already served well by Spokane, by Tri-Cities, and by some smaller airports," Dent said.
"In a best-case scenario, sure, it would be on the west side. You wouldn't have to deal with the pass and getting 50,000 people a day there. But we'll have to see what our options are, what solutions we can come up with."
Rob Hodgman, WSDOT's senior aviation planner and a nonvoting member of the CACC, said last month that the airspace study and other technical findings regarding the three regional airport finalist sites will be discussed at the CACC's March 2 meeting. The commission plans to meet in May for a formal vote on a final recommendation to the Legislature, which is due June 15.
Another online question-and-answer session with CACC acting chair Hendrickson is scheduled from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6; to sign up for it, visit wsdot.wa.gov and search for the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. Scroll down to "Current Events" for a link to the Feb. 6 event.
Community engagement and public comments on the issue will continue through the spring. For more information, contact Hodgman at 360-596-8910 or HodgmanR@wsdot.wa.gov.
