 Business bustles at BFI
<<Sounds of planes flying>> Narrator Says: As the temperatures rise in King County, so does the action at King County International Airport. On top of more favorable weather, and more people on vacation, there’s the ever-present corporate travel, and a little Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron fans like to come out and see. Chris Hall is the airport’s Operations and Compliance Manager. KCIA Operations and Compliance Manager Chris Hall Says: Summer months, usually pick up pretty good. In the winter time we're doing about 20k operations per month. In the summer time like this we're doing about 30k. And a lot of that has to do with summer months; a lot of travel, people go on vacation. This week, Seafair brings a lot of attraction to the field. Blue Angels are in town so they'll be doing their practice and demo on Thursday, Friday. And then the weekend they'll do the show. Across the board, the summer months are pretty busy and then it tapers off around October, September. Narrator Says: Chris says most if not all of the airports 150 tenants get quite a bit busier during the summer. Two that say they definitely do are Clay Lacy, which does mainly corporate aviation services, and Galvin flying, which does the same and also operates a flight school at the airport. <<Sounds of planes flying>> Clay Lacy Customer Service Supervisor Ernesta Duenas Says: The workload either doubles or triples. Clay Lacy in Seattle deals with transient customers, so people that come in from all over the world, stay for two or three or one day and do business and then leave versus Clay Lacy in California where they charter, strictly charter. So here we're very busy because we deal with people that come in from international places, domestic, and pretty much we just sell gas. They come in, we fuel their aircraft, do all the services, help them with hotel reservations, rental cars, pretty much anything they want. Galvin Flying Services President Peter Anderson Says: That is still the case obviously, especially in our case. With the flight school still being a very substantial part of our business. And aircraft sales, and the type of aircraft we use being a substantial part of our business, that is summer season stuff. So towards that end, yes. The flying in the summer, the aircraft sales that are largely accomplished in the summer need to tide us over through that following winter. That is typical. And certainly while corporate traffic is more 12 months of the year, it is still busier during the summer time. And while business is being conducted here throughout the winter, it does slow down. So we are very cyclical here and summers are necessary. Summer is our Christmas season here on the airport if you would. Narrator Says: With all the increased traffic naturally comes more work for Chris and other airport staff. When the amount of traffic rises by about half in the summer months, there is more potential for debris on the runway and less ramp space to go around. KCIA Operations and Compliance Manager Chris Hall Says: You know, busy times we have be outside making sure the airport is kept and maintained in pristine shape: looking for FOD and debris, checking wildlife, making sure that all the tenants if they need assistance with parking because sometimes parking can be an issue because of ramp space. We coordinate with them; provide them some additional ramp space. And then from a security aspect, just make sure the people driving around on the airport have their badge or are in the right place doing the right thing. Narrator Says: Even with the challenges that the busy summers present to fixed-base operators at the airport, they say operating at King County International Airport is well worth it. Clay Lacy Customer Service Supervisor Ernesta Duenas Says: It's a prime location. Usually there's a waiting list to even get to be a based customer here. We just built this hangar, and this hangar got done like last year in December, and it's pretty much almost full with people trying to come in. And people at Paine Field want to come to Boeing Field, and people in Renton want to come to Boeing field. So there's a high demand for it, and the location, you can't beat it. Narrator Says: The summer months are also no doubt a big contributor to the $3,200,000,000 the airport helps generate for local business sales, not to mention the roughly 12,000 jobs and $800,000,000 in labor income in the county.
|
