US airports: Seattle attempts to locate site for second airport

Few mid-sized US cities have more than one commercial airport competing for business outside the bigger main conurbations (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles etc.).

In some cases the addition of a new one, even as merely a reliever, supporting perhaps only low cost carriers or even freight, might be justified. That has been the debate (a long one already) at Seattle, where six potential sites, five general aviation facilities and one airport already partly developed, are again under consideration.

The partly developed one, which is also managed by a firm specialising in airport PPPs, looks to be the favourite, but political, economic and crucially environmental considerations will also come into play, and there is always a slight possibility that one or more airlines will resist the strategy altogether. As happened at Atlanta, where the developer at the Paine Field site near Seattle was also the intended developer in Georgia.