Consultants urge scanning 49 nearby GA airports as relievers but warn of limits

Mark's presentation mapped general-aviation (GA) activity around the Puget Sound and identified 49 airports within 20 miles of Seattle (17 public) as possible contributors to regional capacity relief. He flagged three candidates—Auburn Municipal, Pierce County Thun Field and Arlington Municipal—for potential incremental GA redistribution and noted many GA airports have multi-year waitlists for parking. "There are 49 airports identified within 20 miles of Seattle. 17 of those are public airports," he said.

Members questioned whether GA owners would accept relocation, pointing to long trips, corporate hangar footprints and business-use constraints. Steve noted that modern GA hangars can be larger than passenger terminals (example: Gulfstream hangars of about 25,050 square feet) and that some GA aircraft require significant land. The consultants recommended adding multimodal surface-access analysis and detailed facility planning before treating GA relocation as a meaningful capacity strategy.