Alaska Unhappy About Having to Pay for Expensive Seattle Facility ‘Virtually None’ of Its Customers Will Use

A funding dispute over a new International Arrivals Facility at Seattle’s airport is pitting Alaska against Delta.

A dispute over the funding of a new International Arrivals Facility (IAF) at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) has pitted two of the airport’s most important carriers against each other, reports the Puget Sound Business Journal. Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines have squared off in a dispute over the use of passenger facility charges, or PFCs, as the main source of funding for the new facility. The PFCs, which amount to $4.50 per ticket, are collected from every passenger that uses the facility.

Alaska, which handles more than half of the passenger traffic at SEA but operates very few international routes, feels its customers will be paying for a facility that will be of limited use to them but of great benefit to their main competitor, Delta. Only around 8 percent of Alaska’s routes are international, and of those, most are to Mexico or Canada.

According to a press release from the Port of Seattle, Delta is the largest intercontinental operator at SEA and is firmly committed to creating a West Coast hub at Seattle. The carrier currently operates flights from SEA to three destinations in Europe and six destinations in Asia.

The Port of Seattle, points out that the current IAF at SEA is 42 years old and beyond its peak capacity. At 385,000 square feet, the new IAF would be a cornerstone of the Port of Seattle’s Century Agenda strategy, which calls for a doubling of international flights and destinations over the next 25 years.

The cost of facility has also nearly doubled, jumping from its original estimate of $344 million to $608 million, a further irritant for Alaska, which sees the facility being built on the backs of its domestic passengers.

“Virtually none of our customers are going to use that facility, but they’re going to pay for most of it,” said Joe Sprague, Alaska’s senior vice president of external relations. “The people using the international facility, they need to pay for the facility, and if the price tag is too high, they need to bring the price tag down.”

[Photo: Port of Seattle image by Don Wilson]