With lease approved, Southwest Airlines betting big on Bellingham market
While the COVID-19 delta variant has put a damper on travel plans this summer, Southwest Airlines is continuing to bet big on the Bellingham market.
On Tuesday, Sept. 7, Port of Bellingham commissioners approved a lease agreement with the airline, which will begin two flights a day out of Bellingham to Oakland and one flight a day to Las Vegas on Sunday, Nov. 7.
The year-to-year agreement includes an estimated $1 million remodel of the Bellingham International Airport, with about $730,000 paid for by the airline. The remodel includes a break room, manager’s office, ticket counters and lockers for around 30 employees.
The size of the remodel, including having room for 30 employees, suggests that Southwest is planning for more than three flights a day out of Bellingham. Sunil Harman, director of aviation for the Port of Bellingham, told commissioners that he could foresee eight to 10 daily flights by Southwest out of Bellingham within a year.
While Southwest is not committing to more flights just yet, this build-out at Bellingham and other new destinations is intended for the possibility of future growth, said Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for the airline.
“We do tend to bring a baseline of service to launch a new city, analyze response, and look for opportunities for additional time-saving nonstop service,” Hawkins said in an email.
Hawkins said tickets sales to this point are meeting expectations, but the airline also is hoping border pandemic restrictions are lifted soon so Canadians can travel into Whatcom County for nonessential reasons. The current set of restrictions on nonessential travel into the U.S. is set to expire Tuesday, Sept. 21, but the U.S. could continue extending the restrictions during this recent pandemic surge.
Prior to the pandemic, Canadians played a significant role in activity — at times representing more than 50% of the total passengers flying out of the Bellingham airport when the Canadian dollar is strong.
While Harman doesn’t offer a prediction on which markets Southwest might expand to, he’s hopeful that as pandemic restrictions ease Denver and Chicago will be offered along with an eventual Dallas service, which is the airlines’ main hub.
Harman also noted in an email that several other airlines have expressed interest in flying out of Bellingham, however they want to wait and see how this latest delta variant wave of COVID-19 affects overall demand.
“At least one wants to see which other markets Southwest will announce before making a decision,” Harman said.
Activity forecast
The Port of Bellingham estimates that the three daily flights by Southwest will add 10,439 passengers a month to the number of people flying out the Bellingham airport. That’s a huge jump to the current monthly passenger activity, which was 18,382 in July featuring Alaska and Allegiant flights.
Like many U.S. airports dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Bellingham had a huge drop in passenger traffic last year. A total of 99,673 passengers flew out of Bellingham in 2020, down from 343,628 in 2019.
So far this year there’s been some bounce back in passenger traffic, but nowhere near the pre-pandemic levels. In the first seven months of this year, 74,969 people have flown out of the Bellingham airport; for the same period in 2020 it was 67,075 people. In 2019, the seven-month total was 209,176.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
