State Planners Mention Yakima as ‘Willing Partner’ in New Airport 

WA – Yakima’s interest in using its airport to relieve crowding at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has the attention of state transportation officials.  

Amid airspace congestion reports and considerable opposition from west coast cities and counties to a new airport, Rob Hodgman, the Washington State Department of Transportation senior aviation planner, said one community in Central Washington had stepped forward to help. “Just recently, we’ve found a potential partner in Yakima,” Hodgman said Wednesday as he discussed the matter with the Washington State Transportation Commission. “There’s a lot of work that would be needed to make that happen, but at least we have a willing partner,” he added. 

Hodgman updated the state transportation panel about the Legislature-appointed Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. The commission has been asked to recommend a new site for a regional airport by June. As The Seattle Times reported in November, an analysis of current and future use of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Paine Field near Everett estimates that current plans for expansion at both sites will enlarge their capacity from 50 million annual passengers, pre-pandemic to about 67 million by 2030. 

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 (about the population of Texas), The 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. Therefore, the committee recommends that the state expand Sea-Tac and Paine Field while building a new airport on undeveloped land, The Times reported. 

In 2019, the Legislature voted unanimously, and Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill creating the CACC to consider the issue of overcrowding at Sea-Tac and to identify potential sites for a new airport. According to WSDOT, the commission has 11 voting members (four positions are vacant) and 12 non-voting members, including Hodgman, State Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, and State Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, who has a background in aviation. The CACC has been meeting since October 2019 and has announced three final site recommendations for a new airport in October 2022. Two in Pierce County, southeast of Tacoma, and one in Thurston County, just east of Olympia.