Southeast Alaska’s regional commuter airline, Alaska Seaplanes, has recovered from the Covid recession, and is expanding its routes through cooperation with Ketchikan-based Island Air.
Alaska Seaplanes president Ken Craford spoke to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, and described how the company rode out the pandemic, and emerged in a better position to serve the region.
Craford didn’t shy away from what he said was the most common feedback he’d been hearing lately: rising fares.
Craford: “In fact, in 2022, we had to push through three different fare increases last year to keep up with our rising costs. Prior to that, at least in the in the 10 years, we had been running the business, we’d only raise fares once and a year. So we’ve seen a real hockey stick effect recently, in our cost drivers. You know, this mirrors the inflation that we’re seeing in the broader economy. But it’s particularly acute in the cost drivers for airlines scheduled airlines, and that those are of course fuel being a huge one, insurance but but largest of all labor.”
Craford said the company was deepening its relationship with flight schools, as baby-boomer pilots retired – including supporting the aviation class at Mt. Edgecumbe High School. He said the national shortage in pilots and other aviation jobs would be a self-correcting problem.
Craford: “And for any high school student in Southeast Alaska, that is, considering a career in aviation, whether it’s as a pilot or a mechanic, I can tell you, the market is incredibly strong right now, you’re pretty much guaranteed a job after graduation.”
Craford said the biggest development at the company was its partnership with Ketchikan-based Island Air, which operates the busiest route in Southeast Alaska between Prince of Wales Island and Ketchikan. Craford said the companies would remain independent, but have a shared route map and schedule in the future, which would allow passengers to go from Craig to Haines without “flying over the top of the jets.”
This is a significant turn of events from just three years ago when the pandemic threw aviation – and everyone else – a serious curve.
Craford: “April 6, of 2020. I think that was our low point. We flew like four people that day, something like that, those four brave souls. And a lot of toilet paper, you know, and other stuff on that airplane. But you know, what, what happened with COVID was we saw our freight business surge, we saw our passenger business, just dropped off a cliff. And then like most airlines, around the country, we saw passengers slowly come back, a little more in 2021, and then a huge resurgence and 2022.”
Craford said much of that rebound was due to tourism, but that Seaplane’s routes and schedules were still tailored primarily to local transportation – especially medical transportation to SEARHC in Sitka.
