Billions in New Trains, Same Slow Route: Boeing Field Air Service SeaPort Airlines is Making New Amtrak Trains Obsolete

Founder Kent Craford to ride first Amtrak Airo Cascades Train 503 on September 30th for the “Three Hour (and 25 minute) Tour.”

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As Amtrak prepares to debut it’s new $8 billion Airo trainsets – SeaPort Airlines is offering an alternative that cuts the travel time by over half and requires no massive public investment of funds.

“I love the train. But not if I have to get somewhere. Or by a certain time,” says SeaPort Airlines Founder and CEO Kent Craford. “SeaPort Airlines was founded to get the Pacific Northwest moving again, shortening the distance between our major cities, so you can leave home, do business elsewhere and then get home for dinner—the same day. That’s sadly become a novel concept thanks to I-5 and SeaTac, that is until SeaPort.”

SeaPort Airlines operates from Seattle’s Boeing Field and flies multiple daily frequencies to Portland and Spokane. At SeaPort Air, you only have to arrive 20 minutes before your flight, park for free, there’s no TSA to hassle with, and you are at your destination in about an hour.

Compare that to the Amtrak experience, with no on-site parking at all. Amtrak also shares track with freight lines, making a Portland-Seattle journey a minimum seven-hour roundtrip, effectively killing day trips.

“Amtrak promises the future with these trains – but it’s just the same old slow travel on freight train tracks. The shiny new Airos are combustion engines alright, burning your time for three-and a half hours to travel a mere 120 miles.”

SeaPort Airlines was founded on the principle that your time is valuable, your most precious commodity. Saving hours each way to regional destinations in the Pacific Northwest allows one to conduct a full day’s business in Portland, Seattle or Spokane and still be back home for dinner. SeaPort customers avoid the parking and TSA hassles, the hotels, and the time away from home.

“SeaPort Airlines is the future of regional travel in the Pacific Northwest – fast, efficient, comfortable, and built for business,” Craford said. “For the billions already spent and the ongoing subsidies Washington and Oregon taxpayers will fork over to operate these new trains—for all of that money—they won’t save one minute of your time.”

Craford will be riding Train 503 on Wednesday September 30^th from Seattle to Portland, will be available for conversations in the café car, and will speak to Amtrak’s costs, operating challenges, and the proposed new train boondoggle—the “Cascadia” High Speed Rail line WashDOT is spending $55,000,000 just to study.

A few points of comparison: SeaPort Airlines has required $0 in public subsidy to operate, uses existing infrastructure to launch efficient and time-saving service, and saves passengers over ½ of their time it takes to take a train, drive, or take a larger commercial aircraft through the oversubscribed SeaTac airport.