Tri-Cities Airport says pilot shortage impacted 2017 travel

The Tri-Cities Airport says the passenger count remained flat this past year and the pilot shortage hit the industry hard.

Deputy Director Don Faley says over 374,843 people boarded planes last year, which is a less than 1% increase from 2016, but it is about a 3-4% increase from 2015.

"As the airport, we continue to meet with the airlines, see if we can increase service to different destinations, at least increase aircraft size that they are flying out of the airport so we do have a little bit larger capacity," says Faley.

Due to the shortage in pilots for Horizon Air, the airport says the company reduced flights available to Portland and used smaller planes to Seattle. Which the Tri-Cities Airport says translated to a loss of about 15% of its seats.

Faley says the company has ensured the airport they are close to ending that shortage and are continuing to add larger planes to the routes in an effort to make up the lost capacity.

At this point, Faley says there are no plans to add any new routes in 2018, but says they are working with airlines to provide larger planes for the routes currently offered.