Portland International Airport (PDX) News

[winstonLT5]

America Has Finally Built A Beautiful Airport — https://youtu.be/MRAkjoUdN_I?si=ioQsXUtJK16NaUuG

Happy holidays, all. Sorry if already posted.

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by winstonLT5

America Has Finally Built A Beautiful Airport — https://youtu.be/MRAkjoUdN_I?si=ioQsXUtJK16NaUuG

Happy holidays, all. Sorry if already posted.

Thanks for posting! I love the B1M.

[maccoinnich]

November statistics are out for PDX.

[downtownpdx]

Thanks for sharing. Pretty crazy, general aviation operations are up 25% from last November. International passenger volume is up over 10% from last year, but November '24 vs November '23 was up just .4% - I suppose the recent KLM takeover of Delta's Amsterdam route, and reduced frequency, might have been the reason. It'll be interesting to see overall passenger growth once Alaska's "banked" hub schedule starts next summer.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Thanks for sharing. Pretty crazy, general aviation operations are up 25% from last November. International passenger volume is up over 10% from last year, but November '24 vs November '23 was up just .4% - I suppose the recent KLM takeover of Delta's Amsterdam route, and reduced frequency, might have been the reason. It'll be interesting to see overall passenger growth once Alaska's "banked" hub schedule starts next summer.

I think the banking, at least initially, is not for more traffic but just a different way to schedule flights. I recall when American at PHL did something similar, and they also moved to fewer but larger planes. But passengers remained the same.

I wonder why cargo is down so much? 27% reduction in tonnage. That seems significant. Did a carrier leave? Is that a national trend?

[downtownpdx]

That is strange, especially since international cargo is up 11.5%. Re: the new Alaska schedule, I’ll guess we’ll have to see what happens this summer. They are reducing Boise from 5 to 4 daily, but moving to larger aircraft in at least one of the flights. I think there’s a total of 5 net additional flights so far in the banked schedule. I’d imagine PDX will see some additional destinations not currently served, so it’s hard to imagine there wouldn’t be some substantial increase in Alaska passenger volume in the next year.

[maccoinnich]

From Aeroroutes:

Based on US calendar week 29 comparison, Alaska Airlines in 2024 (week of 14-20JUL24) offered 748 weekly departure with 85824 seats. In 2025 (week of 13-19JUL25), Alaska offers 856 weekly departures with 105972 seats. This represents 14% of frequency increase and 23% capacity increase.

[downtownpdx]

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting, but I'm confused by the numbers. Looking at the list of destinations and frequency adjustments, how does that translate into over 100 extra departures every week?

[maccoinnich]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting, but I'm confused by the numbers. Looking at the list of destinations and frequency adjustments, how does that translate into over 100 extra departures every week?

I think the first part of the post is changes that have recently been filed and the second part of the post an analysis of year-on-year capacity, including the recent changes and any other previously filed changes.

[downtownpdx]

Oh so the July/25 v. July/24 maybe reflects the ~25% capacity growth announced a few months ago, before the banked schedule announcement.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Oh so the July/25 v. July/24 maybe reflects the ~25% capacity growth announced a few months ago, before the banked schedule announcement.

I'm a bit confused on capacity increases. You have either P2P travel, or connections. I doubt suddenly 25% more people are expected to travel to Portland as their final destination, you'd see a slow consistent growth. So then it must be connections to prompt such a sudden increase by rerouting exist travel. But if they aren't adding international routes, where are people connecting to via PDX? I'm not sure I'm following the ALK strategy of increasing routes to PDX while at the same time moving to international routes via SEA. It seems like the two would go hand in hand: add international routes, add connecting flights to feed those routes.

[downtownpdx]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

I'm a bit confused on capacity increases. You have either P2P travel, or connections. I doubt suddenly 25% more people are expected to travel to Portland as their final destination, you'd see a slow consistent growth. So then it must be connections to prompt such a sudden increase by rerouting exist travel. But if they aren't adding international routes, where are people connecting to via PDX? I'm not sure I'm following the ALK strategy of increasing routes to PDX while at the same time moving to international routes via SEA. It seems like the two would go hand in hand: add international routes, add connecting flights to feed those routes.

Yeah not totally sure.. they were talking in early 2024 about having a 25%capacity increase, but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily translate to 25%more passengers. There have been some added destinations, and so I figure if someone from Medford is flying to Nashville, they could now connect and change planes in Portland, not just Seattle anymore. So that adds to the passenger count at PDX even though their final destination isn’t PDX. Maybe I’m wrong on how they calculate those numbers.

Re: SEA international flights, I have a feeling they are saturated with domestic connections on Alaska. As we have seen post Covid, even flying to Medford from PDX often required a connection up north. I think this was a trend nationwide, the hub airports saw most of the growth. But SEA is at capacity, and in order to free up space to accommodate the Alaska Airlines international gateway, they need to use PDX for more domestic connections. I don’t know if this actually means domestic/PNW connections through SEA are reduced a little while PDX grows, or if it just stays where it is? They might do that a little here and there but yeah like you say, if they want international flights to work they need to keep that Alaska hub going strong.

Whatever happens, PDX will see a lot more flights i bet. We just have the room to grow with a pretty spectacular new terminal nearing completion. I also think the split runway layout at PDX, one on each side of the terminal, makes it much easier to avoid huge tarmac delays. In SEA they have all 3 parallel runways on the west side of the terminal and it can take forever to either taxi for takeoff or arrive at the gate while waiting for runways to clear. It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next few decades, because there is nowhere for SEA to grow and an additional airport to the seems like a very far off possibility.

[maccoinnich]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Yeah not totally sure.. they were talking in early 2024 about having a 25%capacity increase, but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily translate to 25%more passengers. There have been some added destinations, and so I figure if someone from Medford is flying to Nashville, they could now connect and change planes in Portland, not just Seattle anymore. So that adds to the passenger count at PDX even though their final destination isn’t PDX. Maybe I’m wrong on how they calculate those numbers.

Just tried a search on the Alaska website, and the best option for that journey was indeed a connection at PDX. My understanding is that this mostly about the Alaska domestic network, but in the longer term it can't hurt with providing feed to their international partners.

[downtownpdx]

Yeah I would think growing the Alaska domestic connections through PDX would help attract international service, at least from Alaska/One World partner airlines.

[babs]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Yeah not totally sure.. they were talking in early 2024 about having a 25%capacity increase, but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily translate to 25%more passengers. There have been some added destinations, and so I figure if someone from Medford is flying to Nashville, they could now connect and change planes in Portland, not just Seattle anymore. So that adds to the passenger count at PDX even though their final destination isn’t PDX. Maybe I’m wrong on how they calculate those numbers.

Re: SEA international flights, I have a feeling they are saturated with domestic connections on Alaska. As we have seen post Covid, even flying to Medford from PDX often required a connection up north. I think this was a trend nationwide, the hub airports saw most of the growth. But SEA is at capacity, and in order to free up space to accommodate the Alaska Airlines international gateway, they need to use PDX for more domestic connections. I don’t know if this actually means domestic/PNW connections through SEA are reduced a little while PDX grows, or if it just stays where it is? They might do that a little here and there but yeah like you say, if they want international flights to work they need to keep that Alaska hub going strong.

Whatever happens, PDX will see a lot more flights i bet. We just have the room to grow with a pretty spectacular new terminal nearing completion. I also think the split runway layout at PDX, one on each side of the terminal, makes it much easier to avoid huge tarmac delays. In SEA they have all 3 parallel runways on the west side of the terminal and it can take forever to either taxi for takeoff or arrive at the gate while waiting for runways to clear. It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next few decades, because there is nowhere for SEA to grow and an additional airport to the seems like a very far off possibility.

SeaTac is adding a new terminal with I believe 19 new gates north of the existing terminal. I think it's about a decade out until it is completed. They are tight on space but are not completely out of room for expansion.

We will see what Alaska's intentions for PDX over the long term will be. As everyone else, I am excited to see new flights and destination. My only word of caution is that I hope PDX doesn't become overly reliant on Alaska. You see other smaller city airports do that and when circumstances changes, they get screwed. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St Louis are some examples. Variety is good and I would love Delta, United, Southwest, American, and JetBlue add more flights rather than retreat over time to provide competition.

[downtownpdx]

Absolutely, the competition and variety are definitely healthy and necessary. While SEA is expanding their gate capacity, I remember one of the Alaska people (mac posted a meeting up thread a couple weeks ago) noting that there is only so much more space in the “pipe”, or airways for SEA. I don’t know how much there is to that, I’d compare LAX which similarly has all runways facing parallel to each other with 575k annual aircraft movements vs. 422k for SEA. I know this isn’t going to stop growth at SEA but i would think crowding situation on the ground is going to become a real issue. Adding 19 gates with the same overall footprint - 3 runways clustered together and only one way for planes to access the terminal already leads to long waits on the tarmac. At least LAX, like PDX (just 4x busier) has the split runway(s) layout, on both sides of the terminal, so not every plane is using the same taxiway.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by downtownpdx

Absolutely, the competition and variety are definitely healthy and necessary. While SEA is expanding their gate capacity, I remember one of the Alaska people (mac posted a meeting up thread a couple weeks ago) noting that there is only so much more space in the “pipe”, or airways for SEA. I don’t know how much there is to that, I’d compare LAX which similarly has all runways facing parallel to each other with 575k annual aircraft movements vs. 422k for SEA. I know this isn’t going to stop growth at SEA but i would think crowding situation on the ground is going to become a real issue. Adding 19 gates with the same overall footprint - 3 runways clustered together and only one way for planes to access the terminal already leads to long waits on the tarmac. At least LAX, like PDX (just 4x busier) has the split runway(s) layout, on both sides of the terminal, so not every plane is using the same taxiway.

Regional movements play into it too. Boeing field is near SEA, and IIRC, downtown Seattle building heights are limited by FAA by being in the cone of that field.

Or be like ATL, and they built that 5th runway that seems like miles from the terminal.

[mhays]

Sea-Tac is finding lots of ways to cram in a little bit more capacity. They plan a fully-independent terminal to the north as noted. They just built a big new international arrivals hall that more than doubles Customs capacity, and converted some existing gates to international-capable. A new "hardstand" waiting building was just built for passengers to wait to be bused to planes with tarmac boarding. The central terminal's core eating/shopping/waiting zone is getting an expansion that recently topped out. But it'll hit capacity in the 2030s or maybe 2040s even with all that. And it won't be that smooth due to the limited runways. (That said, building the third runway, a multi-billion-dollar job, meant they could finally handle two streams with instruments only, which kicked off a surge in overseas routes.)

PS the airport is Sea-Tac (with hyphen). The city and Link Light Rail station are SeaTac (no hyphen).

Paine Field in Everett will take a little bit of the edge off the capacity issue. Before Covid they were around 1m passengers per year, and the master plan should take that to 4m. Sea-Tac did about 53m last year. Since the area might never get another major airport, I'd like Paine to get more ambitious...10m, made possible by kicking out some general aviation?

This should all be good news for PDX.

BTW, PDX will NEVER see the fate of Pittsburgh et al, regardless of overreliance on one airline. The world needs the PNW to have lots of capacity. The region needs PDX to have a lot of capacity even jut for O&D. We can decline somewhat, but any major decline will be filled by other airlines.

[downtownpdx]

Thanks for all the info, yeah SEA is certainly growing fast - I know it was the fastest growing major airport in nation a few years ago before Covid. Probably still close. And concourse C is actually growing up, adding 3 stories for more passenger space. I’m excited to see what happens with PDX, despite the recent Covid era lull it just seems like there’s no way it won’t grow quite a bit in the near future.

[PhillyPDX]

Saw this survey linked on a post by the Port of Portland on Linkedin today. The Port is looking for feedback from small/med biz in the area about needs for international travel as they push for more flights.

https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8108980/english