Paine Field airline flights approved, service begins soon





EVERETT —  The key federal approval for passenger flight at Paine Field came down on Feb. 20, promising a new era of airline service shortly for Snohomish County.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s decision on the environmental analysis means the airport has a few minor steps left to gain full approval.
Alaska Airlines plans to have its first flight — a mid-morning run to Vegas, flight 2777, according to searches in the airline’s tickets system — on March 4. United plans to begin service March 31.
In all, eventually 24 flights a day will buzz from the two-gate terminal that private operator Propeller Airports built at Paine Field.
The airlines will connect local flyers to vacations in Las Vegas and Phoenix and near Disneyland, tech centers in San Francisco and San Jose, as well as to the Los Angeles area, San Diego and Portland. From hubs in Denver and San Francisco that connect to international destinations, the world can be your oyster.
Alaska Airlines’ subsidiary Horizon Air will have short-haul flights to eight destinations largely along the West Coast.
United plans to operate six flights daily to its hubs in Denver and San Francisco.
A nonstop flight to San Francisco, for example, would be a mere three hours compared to a 23-hour drive.
Commercial service at the airport could field more than 17,500 flights a year serving 1 million passengers, by FAA estimates.
For the first year, both airlines plan to use a fleet of 76-seat midsized jets, the Embraer 175. These jets have no middle seat and coach sits four-across. Alaska has a fleet of 58 of them.
In 2024, the airlines plan to introduce Boeing 737s, but no new destinations, according to FAA paperwork.
The demand for an airport north of Seattle is there, the FAA says.
The airport sits on county land between Everett and Mukilteo about 45 minutes north of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The terminal is operated by Propeller Airports under a long-term lease agreement with the county.
The terminal’s been built with a bright, spacious appearance, three restaurants and multiple seating areas. Pictures and more information is on Propeller’s website, www.flypainefield.com, and Alaska Airlines recently posted a video inside the terminal to its website blog.
Paine Field has three runways and already is used for operations by The Boeing Co., general aviation and military applications, plus a flight training school.
The FAA’s decision caps off a more than 10-year pursuit for Alaska Airlines to get commercial flights at the airport, and the airline has the dominant share of flights at the airport. United jumped on board in 2017, and Southwest Airlines was in the running until it sold its terminal berths to Alaska.
A snapshot of the history includes legal challenges from the city of Mukilteo and local groups against the plan out of concern noise and traffic would detract from Mukilteo residents’ quality of life. The challenge fizzled in 2017 when the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case. A prior FAA plan approved in 2012 went back to the drawing board because the airlines wanted to use larger planes and more flights than what the FAA had earlier approved.
A bellwether moment was last fall when the FAA determined from the draft environmental assessment there is no significant impact from commercial flight. The final environmental approval on Feb. 20 was partially a formal re-affirmation.