More Service Reductions at PDX

The news for the airline industry has been almost universally bad lately, with a perfect storm of both soaring fuel costs and a sputtering economy. The same scenes have been playing out repeatedly almost everywhere -- airlines are trimming service, reducing capacity, and implementing other cost-cutting and revenue generation actions. My hometown airport (Portland International Airport, aka PDX) just got hit with some more bad news to this effect today. A few weeks ago, Mexicana announced it would pull out of PDX altogether, ending daily nonstop service to Mexico City and Guadalajara. Now, Horizon Air announces that it will end service altogether to two Oregon cities: Klamath Falls and North Bend/Coos Bay. (The latter should not be confused with Bend, OR which is actually served by Roberts Field in nearby Redmond.)

I suspect this is likely some fallout from United Express announcing new nonstop service from both of these cities to San Francisco beginning this month. There probably just isn't enough demand there to justify daily flights to both Portland and San Francisco from these small cities.

In addition, Horizon also plans to end service between PDX and Pendleton, OR. However, Horizon wants to fly from Pendleton to Seattle and Walla Walla, WA instead. Horizon points out that you could still fly to Seattle and catch a connection to Portland there. I suspect not many people will take them up on this one, since it would probably be faster to just jump on I-84 and drive a couple of hours west to Portland. Then again, maybe this will work out better for the folks out in Pendleton, as there are more direct national and international destinations available from Seattle.

In happier news, Northwest recently announced new service from PDX to Lihue (Kauai), HI. PDX already had nonstop service to Honolulu and Kahului (Maui), so this adds a third direct destination to Hawaii now. Given how dreary the winters can be in the Pacific Northwest, these are no doubt very popular flights.