YAKIMA, Wash.- The Yakima Air Terminal is seeing a good start to the addition on an extra set of flights to its daily schedule.
After an early morning departure, late night arrival flight was added YKM on November 17, seats on the planes have been filling up fast.
“In fact, our flight that departed today was 100% load factor and so that’s really good,” said YKM Director Robert Hodgeman.
The airport’s new additions have gone on without a hitch. While expecting a learning curve, Hodgeman says the crew hit the ground running.
“I’ve been talking to my colleagues, both TSA and with Horizon, and things have gone really well which is encouraging,” says Hodgeman.
YKM says the new flights have been a long time coming. After the contract was signed with Horizon and Alaska Airlines to bring the extra flight in, the Yakima community had to step up to help support the process.
While the flight has made its way to YKM, the support can’t stop there.
“This is what the community has rallied around,” says Hodgeman. “We’ve had a lot of government and private donation support to bring these flights back so if we want to keep them, then please book your flights.”
The airport was motivated to bring in the extra flights ahead of the holiday season. YKM says the added travelers helps to gather data about the second flight schedule, while also helping the Yakima area.
“This is when a lot of people travel,” says Hodgeman. “People travel for the holidays so this gives us an opportunity for a much larger group of the traveling public to be aware that we have the second set of flights and to actually experience them.”
Hodgeman says Christmas travel isn’t expected to be any different out of YKM. He recommends anticipating delays or even cancellations for your connecting flights, but flights in and out of Yakima are rarely impacted by weather.
