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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Horizon Air's jets and its smaller Bombardier Q200 aircraft may not be the only victims of Horizon's move to standardize its fleet on 70-seat Q400 turboprops to cut costs.
In that process, Horizon will reduce its 65-plane fleet to somewhere between 48 and 50-some aircraft depending on market conditions.
That means two things: some smaller cities will have fewer flights because the airline has fewer aircraft, and Horizon will need fewer pilots, cabin crew members, mechanics and other personnel to operate its fleet.
Horizon spokesman Dan Russo says the airline hopes to make the transition as painless as possible. The change will take about two years.
During those two years, the company thinks natural attrition will reduce its workforce and other voluntary staff reduction programs, yet unspecified, could bring staff requirement into sync with staff size.
But if those don't, there's a possibility the company will have to resort to layoffs.
On the issue of service to smaller cities now served by the 37-seat Q200s, Horizon will juggle its schedules to provide the appropriate number of seats in the larger Q400s as in the smaller Q200s. That's likely to mean fewer daily flights. The airline has already converted from 200s to 400s in cities such as Bellingham with no adverse results.
But Bellingham generates enough daily traffic that the airline can maintain a decent number of flights even after reducing the daily schedules.
The problem will come in some small markets, say Pendleton, North Bend, Klamath Falls in Oregon and Walla Walla in Washington where passenger numbers are fewer.
If transitioning to all Q400s in those markets doesn't make sense, Alaska Airlines, Horizon's sister carrier, may contract with another carrier like it does with PenAir in Alaska, to provide service with smaller planes, company officials say.
"We're working to maintain air service to all of the communities we now serve," said Russo.
