Like the other heavyweights in its class, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is more than just a place to board or disembark a plane. For visitors, its concourses are giant welcome mats that leave a first impression, for better or worse. For locals, it’s the region’s preeminent portal to the wider world, and the first place to stretch the legs back home after a long trip.
But for too many travelers, flying through its overcrowded gates is too often a lengthy and stressful experience. Leaders at the Port of Seattle are investing billions of dollars to expand capacity and move people more efficiently at America’s 11th busiest airport. Those improvements are a necessity as the Puget Sound region is expected to bulge by another 1.5 million people by 2050.
Three cities surrounding the airport have pushed back on some of those projects, citing legitimate, long-running concerns about aircraft noise and pollution. Burien, Des Moines and SeaTac are appealing the Federal Aviation Administration’s September decision that the port’s Sustainable Airport Master Plan wouldn’t have a significant environmental impact on nearby communities.
The port can, and should, continue to ameliorate the disruptive impacts on life for those who live closest to the airport. It can install soundproofing insulation, for example, as it has in some 9,400 homes in the last 40 years. But port leaders must also pursue improvements that make travel through Sea-Tac smoother and safer for passengers. Those twin goals do not have to be at odds with each other.
What the port can’t control: how many carriers fly to and from the airport, whose flights drove a record of more than 53 million passengers this year. Nor can the port deny or delay any of the 1,200 flights that take off and land at Sea-Tac each day. Managing the airspace is the FAA’s job.
What it can control: making, or breaking, the passenger’s experience.
“We don’t create demand, we meet the demand of the region,” Steve Metruck, Port of Seattle executive director, told the editorial board. “That’s what we’re endeavoring to do.”
Today’s status quo is far from sterling. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — now rebranded as SEA — has scored poorly among travelers for years. The J.D. Power survey this year rated it at 17th among the 20 biggest airports in the country. The frequent flyer website Upgraded Points ranked the airport the 10th worst on the amount of time travelers must arrive early — a whopping two hours, 46 minutes needed from entry to gate to make a flight.
“I will take connections, fly red eyes, drive coast to coast, or do whatever else is necessary to avoid this airport in the future,” one commenter on a prominent airport review website said.
Traversing the airport needn’t be luxurious but it shouldn’t be miserable.
The port’s latest $4.4 billion plan would construct a second terminal and 19 gates, move some cargo facilities off site to free space and extend taxiways to unclog the 2,500-acre airfield, among the smallest in the country for its passenger volume. The projects are funded by port fees, its airport businesses, bonds and grants — not its tax revenues.
Newer generations of planes, which are getting quieter, are also expected to transition to biofuels in the future; the port’s projects include plans for storing those fuels.
The region, and its largest airport, is going to grow. And the search for a second metro airport has all but stalled. Can Sea-Tac meet its potential — or will it become a stagnant, headache-inducing place for all travelers? The choice is at hand.
