Alaska To Reopen Spokane Counter

First they said they were leaving. Then they said they never left. Now they say they are back.

After a three-year absence, Alaska Airlines will reopen its own customer service counter staffed by its own employees at Spokane International Airport in November.

“We are starting to see enough of an increase in our business there that we are bringing back our own counter,” Alaska spokesman Jack Evans said Friday.

Horizon Air has been handling Alaska’s ground operations under contract.

“They have gotten to the point where it seems they want to have their own identity here again,” said Mark Jucht, Spokane International Airport’s finance manager.

Alaska’s ground operations will bring 24 Alaska Airline employees to Spokane. The reduced activities for Horizon, though, will eliminate up to 14 current Horizon employees according to company officials.

The changes are taking place because demand for Spokane-Seattle seats and Spokane-Portland seats has soared since Alaska shut down its Spokane operations in 1993.

In September, Horizon eliminated two of its daily Spokane-Seattle flights and one Spokane-Portland flight. Horizon operates commuter aircraft and small-capacity jets.

At the same time, Alaska increased its Spokane-Seattle flights from six daily to eight in its full-size commercial jets.

On Nov. 1, Evans said, Alaska will add three daily Spokane-Portland flights, bringing its daily total to 11 flights. Horizon operates 55 flights daily from Spokane to a variety of destinations.

The re-entry of Alaska was possible after America West, which briefly operated a Spokane-Phoenix flight this year, decided to shut down here.

Alaska will occupy that counter space at the airport. It is the last space available at the facility, airport officials said.

Alaska’s departure from Spokane in 1993 came at a bleak time for both the airline and Spokane International Airport.

Continental Airlines had pulled out of Spokane a few months earlier, leaving many travelers convinced that Spokane International was going to be relegated to the role of a commuter airport.

At the same time, Alaska was struggling through an identity crisis of its own.

The company’s whole image up to that point had been based on the idea that air travelers were willing to pay a little more for top-quality service.

For years, that strategy had produced unwavering profits for Alaska. But by the early 1990s, Alaska joined the legion of air carriers losing huge amounts of money to fierce competition from low-fare carriers.

In the Spokane market, that company was Morris Air. The typical response of the full-service companies was to match the low fares and wait for the low-fare carriers to collapse financially.

But by 1993, the full-service carriers had lost so much money that they couldn’t wait anyone out. Many, including Alaska, had to pull out of marginal markets.

Alaska, at least, had an alternative in Spokane - Horizon Air. Both airlines are owned by The Alaska Air Group. As Alaska left, Horizon stepped up its activities, albeit with smaller airplanes.

A couple of the daily Spokane-Seattle flights were still operated with Alaska’s big jets, but they were scheduled as Horizon flights.

In its re-entry into the market, Alaska officials have attempted to soothe alienated Spokane customers by pointing to the Horizon flights on Alaska jets and saying the company never really left.

Just as Alaska was pulling out, Morris’s low fares sparked the explosion in passenger traffic that continues today and has made Spokane one of the fastest growing air travel markets in the country.

When Southwest Airlines bought Morris at the end of 1993, the most successful and profitable of the low-fare carriers ensured that low fares would remain a staple of the Spokane market.

In order to survive, Alaska had no choice but to reinvent itself. After much cost-cutting and restructuring, the airline put itself on a footing that allows it now to operate cheaply enough to compete with the low-fare carriers.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo