Paine Field to temporarily suspend passenger service

After about a year of service, Paine Field is temporarily suspending passenger service for aircraft ramp maintenance and repairs.

The airport, which says it has served more than a million passengers since it opened on March 4, 2019, is taking advantage of a significant decrease in passenger numbers both at Paine Field and nationwide to complete the work from May 22 through July 31, 2020.

Originally, the airport had planned to schedule the work over a four-month period, but said completing the upgrades all at once while avoiding passenger inconvenience is more efficient. It will allow the airport to be better positioned to serve passengers later this summer.

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The work has been coordinated with Alaska Airlines and United Airlines and approved by the FAA.

Paine Field has only five scheduled daily departures, down from 24 before the coronavirus pandemic. The airport expects 24 daily departures will return to the airport when service resumes.

“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.”

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