Southwest wants to quit Sea-Tac

By JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News SEATTLE – Southwest Airlines wants to expand and grow in Seattle, but right now, the airline says, it can't because it would simply cost too much at Sea-Tac International Airport. Southwest says it's now looking at its options, and one of them is build new a new terminal, parking lot and other facilities at another airport. King County Executive Ron Sims says Southwest approached the county looking to trim costs of operating its more than 40 flights a day out of Sea-Tac by relocating its Seattle operations to King County Airport – better known as Boeing Field. The talks with Southwest are still preliminary, but are at a stage where Sims says it's time to go public. "They are very serious about being at King County Airport," he said. "We have another major airport out at Sea-Tac. We don't need another one right here in the middle of the city," said Dwight Pelz, King County Councilman. Pelz says Southwest at Boeing Field is an idea that will never take off. Sims acknowledged late Tuesday afternoon the idea will be a tough sell in some communities like Magnolia and Beacon Hill where residents already complain about noise from jets coming into and out of Boeing Field. "We are going to be concerned about noise and traffic and flight pattern and that is going to be very critical to our decisions," said Sims. Sims says in addition to creating jobs, the added income would help Boeing Field come out of the red. Right now it costs the county more to run the airport than the airport takes in. All this is still years and millions of dollars away. The president of the commission for the Port of Seattle said Tuesday he was surprised about the announcement because Sea-Tac is equipped to handle growth for 20 years and he doesn't see how the public is well-served by this idea. ----- This is interesting. As SW grows it will run into constraints - here we see how they wil try to deal with such constraints.