Hastings visits with Port of Moses Lake members

Lawmaker takes opportunity to listen to concerns, tour new facilities

Amid the roar of the jet engines at the Grant County International Airport, U.S. Congressman Richard "Doc" Hastings did quite a bit of listening Monday afternoon.

The Pasco lawmaker, R-4th District, met with the airport's top brass and took note of the issues and concerns affecting the people in charge of one of the nation's longest runways.

"We wanted to give him an update on airport operations," the Port of Moses Lake's executive manager David Senne said, calling Hastings "very receptive and concerned" about, among other topics, the Essential Air Service Program at Grant County International Airport.

Senne said that the nationwide program, which provides air service to rural communities, and which he labeled as "very important," has been under attack by presidential administrations for more than a decade, and Hastings has been successful in driving back the attack, keeping the program in place.

The constant attack, Senne said, has affected the public's perception of the program.

"People are doubtful about the future of the program," he said. "The word on the street is that they are going to cut it."

This, Senne said, would have serious implications, as "air service today is as important as the rail service was 100 years ago. We have got to have it."

Nevertheless, he said the service presents certain hurdles. "We need to look at the service and see if we can revitalize it," he said. "Perhaps people are not using it as much as they could or should."

Senne underlined four troublesome areas that have led the program to be in need of revitalization. "It's scheduling, type of equipment, service and cost," he said.

He described the latter two areas by giving the example of a trip to Memphis, Tenn. from Moses Lake. "Are you going to fly to Seattle and then wait five hours for a flight to Memphis, or will you drive two hours to Spokane instead?"

Second, Senne stated that airlines do not receive anything by taking in more passengers. "If you take in zero passengers, you receive $740," he said. "If you take in 19, you receive $740."

However, he said that by increasing the number of passengers, more bags have to be carried, more fuel is burned, and the liability costs increase.

This, coupled with the absence of penalties for late flights, creates, in Senne's words "a disincentive" for airlines to keep time and to increase service.

Adding to the difficulties is the overall swoon of the airline industry even since before the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The business had dropped before Sept. 11," Senne said after the meeting. "Sept. 11 just accelerated that drop and we have not quite recovered."

Hastings listened to the port's plight, and then declared that if there is something fundamentally flawed in the industry today, "it needs to be changed."

Hastings and Senne agreed that operating an entire airport for 19-passenger aircrafts does not work, and that may make the difference between "a well-maintained airport and a not-so-well maintained airport with 19-passenger aircrafts."

Compounding the situation is the slumping economy, which Senne said leads the populace to value certain services over others. "People have a better understanding of the value of a fire department than that of an airport," he said.

Port commissioner Larry Peterson hinted that Moses Lake is at a point where its growth has taken the city to the threshold of the next level in community size. Hastings agreed, saying the city is "just waiting to be found."

Nonetheless, Peterson said that regardless of this growth, losing air service would be highly detrimental. "If we can't maintain air service it would kill us," he said. "It would drop us off the checklists."

The checklists Peterson referred to, Senne explained, are the lists "of an industry looking for a new location," as it was the case with the Boeing 777, which considered Moses Lake as a site before choosing to remain in Everett.

"In air service," Senne said, "if you don't get the boxes checked, you never get that first phone call, and you are bypassed without ever knowing you were in the running."

After the meeting, Hastings joined Senne in a quick tour of the new security installations at the Grant County International Airport.