Vancouver-Seattle flights coming soon
Harbour Air planning seaplane service between Coal Harbour and Lake Union
Harbour Air is expected to start offering direct seaplane service between downtown Vancouver and downtown Seattle next year — a move that would create a long-desired transportation link between the two urban cities and boost Vancouver’s emerging reputation as a technology hub.
Starting early spring, Harbour Air and Washington-based Kenmore Air plan to offer four flights daily between downtown Vancouver’s Coal Harbour and Lake Union in downtown Seattle, near Amazon’s headquarters and a future Google campus. The companies will add flights as demand increases, Harbour Air president Greg McDougall said.
“There’s a lot of interest in it, especially with the Cascadia corridor being created and the high-tech interaction between Vancouver and Seattle,” McDougall said after attending the Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference in Seattle on Tuesday.
“We were down there and it was interesting to see how many people are interested in the high-tech relationships between the two cities, and Portland as well,” he said. “Creating a transportation link is a vital part in making all that work.”
The service on the “nerd bird” means tech workers can shuttle between cities in less than an hour, bypassing long border waits or skipping the commutes to and from international airports located a drive away from the cities’ downtown cores.
Harbour Air is still working out details with the Canada Border Services Agency to set up a customs facility at the Coal Harbour terminal. Such a facility is already running on the Seattle end, which is used to service Kenmore flights between Seattle and Victoria.
“We’re hopeful we’ll have that figured out early spring,” McDougall said. “Everything else is ready to go.”
Direct transportation links between Seattle and Vancouver have been a dream for proponents of Cascadia, and one McDougall believes is long overdue.
“We feel confident the business is there. There’s enough people travelling back and forth to make it work.”
The company was initially hesitant to pursue Vancouver-Seattle service, but getting the support of companies such as Microsoft, as well as interest from Google and Amazon, gave them the confidence to launch the route.
“We know Microsoft is only one of quite a few different companies that have (identified) this need. There are other high-tech companies who have said, ‘Can you start this because we need it?’ ” McDougall said.
“In aviation, when things are begging to get done, it’s still difficult, but at least you have a fighting chance.”
The route would also cater to tourists in the summer months.
At the conference Tuesday, Microsoft president Brad Smith stressed the need for better transportation links between Seattle and Vancouver.
The seaplane flights would be something that could be implemented quickly.
“It’s clear the demand is there,” he said. “We at Microsoft have studied the flow back and forth of our own employees. Heck, we’re prepared to buy a bunch of tickets.”
Longer term, Smith said he wants to see a high-speed rail system between Vancouver and Seattle. Washington state has budgeted funds for a feasibility study and Microsoft has donated US$50,000 to the study.
Microsoft is “very bullish” on Vancouver and is lobbying the federal and provincial governments to make increased investments in what it sees as a city with a bright future as a technology hub, Smith said.
“We have made clear that we think of Vancouver as a second home,” he said. “We’re growing and I would hope that we’d have continuing opportunities to grow in Vancouver.”
The Washington-based technology company anticipates growing beyond the 750 jobs it initially expected to create in Vancouver when it opened its Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre in June 2016, he said.
The centre, now known as Microsoft Canada, employs 800 workers across product development, sales and marketing, and retail and office work, a spokesman said.
Smith stopped short of saying Microsoft could open a second headquarters in the city, but said “it makes sense” for Vancouver to set its sights on wooing Seattlebased tech giant Amazon.com Inc. to open its proposed second headquarters there.
The ecommerce giant announced this month it is seeking to build a second headquarters in North America. Expected to be equal to its Seattle campus, the new headquarters would likely require a US$5-billion investment in construction and employ up to 50,000, the company said.