Maintenance And Repair Crews To Replace Passengers At Paine Field In Everett

A drastic drop in passenger demand has turned into an opportunity to complete maintenance projects sooner than planned over the long term at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. Here’s a press release out today.

After a successful first year in operation, serving more than one million passengers, Propeller Airports and Snohomish County announced that passenger service at Paine Field will be temporarily suspended from May 22, thru July 31, 2020 for aircraft ramp maintenance and repairs.

Due to a significant decrease in passenger numbers both at Paine Field and nationwide, the airport is taking advantage of this opportunity to expedite the time needed to complete this essential safety work by months. The maintenance and repair projects were originally scheduled to be completed in a phased approach over a four-month period.

The ability to perform these upgrades all at once, avoiding passenger inconvenience is significantly more efficient and will allow the terminal to be better positioned to serve Puget Sound, Everett and the surrounding communities when service resumes later this summer.

The schedule for this maintenance work has been coordinated with Alaska Airlines and United Airlines and approved by the FAA. Paine Field’s passenger terminal opened in 2019 and achieved a volume of more than one million travelers just prior to its first anniversary, making it the fastest growing airport in the nation.

Currently, the airport has five scheduled daily departures, down from 24 before the COVID-19 pandemic. When service resumes, it is fully expected that 24 daily departures will return to the airport.

“The travel industry has never faced an economic challenge of this magnitude,” said Brett Smith, CEO of Propeller Airports, which designed, built and financed the terminal through a public-private partnership with Snohomish County. “We are going to use this temporary disruption to the advantage of Paine Field and our airline partners by completing necessary infrastructure improvements faster than we would have been able to while the terminal was open and flight operations were taking place.”

Paine Field opened for passenger service on March 4, 2019. The award-winning airport terminal has received global recognition for its unique design and superior amenities, providing a convenient travel alternative for travelers in and around Snohomish County and the Puget Sound region.

Over the past year, more than 8,560 flights have departed to 11 non-stop destinations, over 150,000 cars have been parked and more than 1,022,046 passengers served.