PENDLETON — The controversy of which of three airlines will win selection as the essential air service carrier between Pendleton and Portland did a steep dive Wednesday, March 6, when Alaska Seaplanes co-owner and President Kent Craford wrote a letter to Pendleton city officials broadly criticizing his two competitors for the franchise.

Craford addressed his letter to Mayor John Turner and all members of the city council. He called out Boutique Air CEO Shawn Simpson for “errors of fact” in a message he sent to its customers regarding Alaska Seaplanes’ proposal to fly the Pendleton-to-Portland route. Craford also claimed Boutique has a “serious tax delinquency issue.”

“As of November 2023, Boutique Air owed Umatilla County $103,346.20,” Craford told the council in the letter. “Only $20,264.28 was due for the current year. The remainder, $83,081.92 was for past tax years, with interest penalties, going back to 2019.”

Craford also wrote Southern Air/Surf Air, “has a long history of unpaid taxes, in this case to the Internal Revenue Service, dating back several years. The company is deeply unprofitable and borrows heavily against essential air service subsidy payments.”

Craford noted Boutique paid the Umatilla County tax bill on Feb. 13, “two days before bids were submitted for Pendleton air service.”

The East Oregonian confirmed with Umatilla County’s office of assessment and taxation that Boutique had paid its taxes and other charges in full in mid-February.

Sisson’s letter to customers

In his message to customers, Simpson said Southern Airways Express and Alaska Seaplanes had been “aggressively” pursuing the contract and were “like very hungry caterpillars” regarding new revenue.

The Boutique Air CEO added the company has provided safe and reliable service to Pendleton since 2016.

“During the past two years we have done so with 99% reliability — the best in our history,” Simpson told customers. “This is a result of our strong pilot training program, outstanding staff and owning the largest fleet of our Pilatus PC12 aircraft of any airline in the United States.”

In his message Simpson claimed Alaska Seaplanes has just two Pilatus PC-12s.

“They operate five different types of aircraft and do not have sufficient Pilatus aircraft in their fleet to reliably fly this route at this time,” he wrote.

Craford countered the company owns three and has “a fourth scheduled to be delivered in April.”

Craford charges minimal experience

Simpson asserted Alaska Seaplanes lack the depth of experience in flying PC-12s that Boutique Air has.

“Alaska Seaplanes is a bona fide regional airline,” Craford responded. “We conducted 28,500 flight operations in 2023. If Boutique continues in Pendleton, they are scheduled to operate a total of 4,368 total flights between their total current routes of Pendleton and Massena, New York.”

Alaska Seaplanes president added he and his business partner Mike Stedman introduced Pilatus PC-12 service to Pendleton in 2008.

Craford wrote Boutique boasts, “23 total aircraft, but many of them are sitting around mothballed at various airports or for sale on www.controller.com.”

Simpson told customers Boutique’s bid included an average ticket price of $69 while Alaska Seaplanes has an average ticket price of $98.

“We are reducing our prices to make our service more affordable to more people,” Simpson wrote.

But Craford told the city council Boutique’s projected $69 ticket price point is “misleading.”

Boutique’s Director of Operations Medine Cory, on March 5 at the Pendleton City Council meeting told the East Oregonian the airliner was “looking into reducing the rate right now … and we’re going to lower it probably 20-30% and even more so.”

Much like Simpson in his message to customers, Cory concluded the main reason the Boutique contract should be renewed in Pendleton is reliability.

“Our reliability has been like 99.8% in Pendleton,” Cory said. “I don’t know what else we can do to compete with any other airline when we have zero cancellations … and I’m going to guarantee you what’s coming next is going to be the same.”

Cory said one extra offer Boutique provides Pendleton is a small fleet of rental cars.

Boutique responds to Alaska Seaplanes

Simpson had a look at the Craford letter by mid-afternoon on March 7 and made several responses:

“1. Alaska Seaplanes has two PC-12s, according to their website.

2. Alaska Seaplanes has a lot less experience with the plane than we do since it is our specialty.

3. Alaska Seaplanes has a partnership with a much smaller network, Alaska Airlines, than our network, United and American.

4. I don’t think they have vouchers available on their website.

5. In our meeting I said we would average $69 fares and that’s what we will adhere to.

6. We have safely and reliably served Pendleton and are excited to continue doing so as long as the community supports our presence there.”

Southern pitches Seattle trip

Southern Airways Express’ Chief Commercial Officer Mark Cestari prior to Craford’s letter said his employer is pitching an idea to schedule two trips per day between Pendleton and Portland, and make a mid-day trip between Pendleton and Seattle on a regular basis.

“A lot of people currently do day trips to Portland, so we would preserve that if they’re going to the state capital in Salem, or for business or a doctor’s appointment, whatever,” Cestari said, “but connecting to the Seattle gateway is really the game changer because they have more than three times as many flights as in Portland. There are many more international connections in Seattle. We’re working to bring tourists to town, and we would have two feeder markets rather than just one.”

MTC Consultant Hank Myers submitted a document to the U.S. Department of Transportation regarding the bid to provide essential air service to Pendleton. Craford also was listed on the document as a primary contact. In the document, Myers called Southern’s parent company “deeply unprofitable” and linked Surf Air Mobility’s quarterly report from September 2023.

Southern Airways Chief of Staff Keith Sisson responded to these claims in a letter to Pendleton Airport Manager Dan Bandel. He said the company has “on-demand financing as-needed in excesses of $100,000,000.”

Myers also included snapshots for all three companies from online sites, such as Tripadvisor, Yelp, Glassdoor and Better Business Bureau. Reviews on these websites reflected positive ratings for Alaska Sea Seaplanes — with lower ratings for Boutique Air and Southern Airways.

Sisson outlined in his letter the airline industry as a whole has many people who are dissatisfied with service and satisfied customers are less likely to take the time to post reviews.

Looking at Tripadvisor as an example, Sisson said the oldest review was from June 2018. Since then Southern Airways have flown 1,671,263 passengers and there have been a total of 177 unsatisfactory reviews on the website.

“This represents 0.001% of the passengers who have flown during that time frame,” he said. “While any negative experience is regretful, 99.99% of our passengers did not have an experience that compelled them to make a negative comment.”

Sisson added that major airline companies — such as United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta — tend to be lowly rated on these websites as well and have thousands of customer complaints each year.

“Pendleton has an important choice to make about the future of your community and the caliber of people with whom you choose to do business,” she said. “SurfAir And Southern Airways stand ready to fully support the decision that your community makes, regardless of the carrier, as we know you will act in the best interests of Pendleton.”

The Department of Transportation has extended the deadline for public comments regarding the Pendleton essential air service to March 19, at 8:59 p.m. at www.regulations.gov. The docket ID number is DOT-OST-2004-19934.