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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Early flights get earlier at Pullman airport

Beginning in April, flights from Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport are about to get even earlier. Pullman Regional Airport Director Tony Bean said the regular 6 a.m. flight will soon be leaving at 5 a.m. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
By Shanon Quinn Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Early morning flights from Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport are about to get even earlier, Pullman Regional Airport Director Tony Bean said Tuesday during a special Airport Board meeting.

The regular 6 a.m. flight will soon be leaving at 5 a.m.

“If you’re not an early riser, that’s painful,” Bean said. “Even if you are an early riser, that’s painful.”

While the change, which will take effect in April, is unlikely to inspire a ticker tape parade among passengers, Bean said it will help flight connections go more smoothly at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“The benefit of it is being able to get connected to flights in a more effective manner,” he said.

Bean said when morning flights are delayed in getting to the Seattle hub, pilots and crew can run short on time, or there simply won’t be enough space for aircraft at Sea-Tac, resulting in delayed or canceled flights.

“Pretty soon it starts backing up the whole system,” Bean said. “We’ve had cancellations for crew rests.”

Bean said the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport is not the only airport affected by the change. He said the decision was made by the airport’s primary airline and not the airport board.

“Every airport Alaska serves will have the same change,” he said.

Bean said while the earliest flight will move up an hour, the 11:15 a.m. flight will remain the same, and the 3:10 p.m. flight will increase in frequency from four to seven days per week.

In other business:

The board also discussed the airport’s ever increasing annual passenger numbers, which have broken records for the past three years.

“It’s very significant,” Bean said. “We served over 122,000 people through this building.”

Snow removal at the airport has been a larger job that usual, as the Palouse continues to experience relatively sever winter weather, but Bean said flight cancellations have not been the result of failure to keep up with snow removal, but inclement weather in general.

“We’re keeping up with the snow,” Bean said. “We’re doing better than we’ve ever done before.”

The board expects the runway expansion project to be complete and ready for a test flight by the Federal Aviation Administration in October 2019. The board had previously considered moving up the test – known as a publication date – to 2018, but recently decided to push the date back as funding to complete the project is not certain, due to changes in the country’s leadership.