Originally Posted by
formeraa
While POS bears some responsibility, it is nearly impossible to predict that a major airline (DL) would decide to open a major at SEA. How on earth do you forecast that?
Simply put, by watching traffic volume on I-5 and I-405 burst the metro's infrastructural buttons.
The Seattle metro has been in growth mode for 25 years, since Microsoft launched Windows 95 and the consumer Internet exploded. The inadequacy of all regional transport infrastructure -- roads, light rail, buses, Sea-Tac, you name it -- is a long-running, multi-decade story. Regional cultural mindset resists expansion until it's way overdue. This is a city that rejected federal mass transit funding circa 1970 because it didn't want to enable growth and movement (the money went to San Francisco/BART and Atlanta/Metra instead) and is now shamefacedly playing catch-up, building out (incredible costly) rail infrastructure that won't be done until mid-century and will be overtaxed from day one.
The "Seattle Way" is to dodge a problem until problems become crises, then do the least possible, as lengthily and expensively as possible. That allergy to vision, planning, etc. is why Sea-Tac is in meltdown today -- a state of affairs any Bellevue real estate agent could have predicted in 2005. And I expect the improvements under way now, when done, will quickly be swamped by traffic levels.
Originally Posted by
emma dog
UA had a focus city/mini-hub in SEA in the 1990s until ~9/11. Their ops used much/most of N.
Another non-secret: United shriveling to a token presence at SEA left AS an inadequate sole incumbent. You didn't have to be a master network planner to see the opportunity. The situation 2000-2015 was obviously never going to last. I'm just surprised AA, with its weakness in the West, didn't step up to make the hub move instead of DL. But someone was going to invade to challenge AS and meet / stimulate demand. If the Port of Seattle didn't see that coming at the turn of the century, it had its head in the sand.