Portland-to-Seattle Airline Begins Service Monday

By Jonathan Brinckman, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Jun. 28–The genesis of the airline revving up for its inaugural flight Monday was a 2005 conversation on the wharf in front of Centennial Mill on the Portland waterfront.

With the Willamette River at their feet, John Beardsley, who owned the Northwest Portland mill, and Kent Craford, a lobbyist, bounced the idea of launching a commercial floatplane business.

Such planes could make the Portland-to-Seattle trip quicker and more convenient than the time-consuming and hassle-filled options both were used to.

They spent a year and more than $25,000 investigating the idea before ultimately deeming it impractical. Floatplanes would be too slow, restricted to daylight hours and vulnerable to accidents caused by floating debris.

But they still liked the idea of a different kind of plane travel connecting the Northwest’s biggest cities.

“What started out as a neat idea led us to a real market need,” Craford said. “We were wrong on the solution, but we identified the problem.”

Then they found their answer: the Pilatus PC-12, a Swiss-built pressurized turbine aircraft that cruises at 322 mph and would be able to reach Seattle in 35 minutes.

From there, the two men and Tom Corrolow formed SeaPort Air Group, which begins Portland-to-Seattle service Monday. The company will offer eight round trips Monday through Friday and five on weekends. They also bought a commuter airline in Juneau, Alaska.

The Pilatus’ small size — it carries nine passengers — allows SeaPort to operate without oversight by the Transportation Security Administration, which means travelers don’t have to go through security checkpoints or pay the TSA ticket surcharge of $2.50 per flight.

The fuel-efficient plane needs 55 gallons, about 6 gallons per passenger, to fly from Portland to Seattle. A solo driver in a car getting 24.6 mpg — the national average — makes the same trip on about 7 gallons.

Craford used to fly to Seattle regularly when he worked for Gallatin Public Affairs, a Seattle-based lobbying company. SeaPort flies from a private terminal at Portland International Airport into Boeing Field, instead of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, cutting the downtown-to-downtown travel time in half, Craford said, from three hours to about 90 minutes.

“The major airlines are proving their model is broken,” Craford said. “Our timing to market is perfect.”

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