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KCIA cargo: A mysterious medley
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this video clip (Real Media) Length: (3:23)
Watch this video clip (Windows Media) Length:
(3:23)
<<Sounds of airplane landing>>
Narrator Says:
Every day at King County International Airport, it comes rolling in.
<<Sounds of cargo being unloaded>>
Narrator Says:
Cargo, the stuff people are sending each other regionally, nationally,
or internationally.
Ameriflight’s Kevin Wu Says:
This is a package going from Walla Walla to La Chapelle, France, so it’s
an international package.
Narrator Says:
KCIA is among the busiest commercial airports in the U.S.
It averages around 300,000 takeoffs and landings every year, directly
employing about 4,000 people and indirectly employing more than 10,000.
The airport is home base to more than 150 businesses that, according to
economic studies, contribute about 1.6 billion dollars to the Puget
Sound economy.
Ameriflight is one of those businesses.
It services smaller communities, transporting small air cargo via KCIA
to larger air cargo carrier companies, such as UPS that operate
worldwide.
Ameriflight Division Manager Rod Fichter Says:
You can kind of think of us as the commuter airline for the cargo boxes.
The big jets may come to a big city like Seattle, and we'll take those
boxes to the smaller towns such as Yakima or Wenatchee in little
airplanes, so we're like the commuters for the boxes.
Most of our planes are flying full. And if they're not they'll get full.
They'll grow into it. But, it's a lot of volume; we have something like
200 aircraft flying throughout the country. And in the Caribbean, we fly
as far south as Venezuela.
Narrator Says:
Regionally on top of Yakima and Wenatchee, Ameriflight also services
Lewiston, Walla Walla, Tri-Cities, and Moses Lake.
In the early 1980’s, when it began operating at Boeing Field, the kinds
of cargo going back and forth were quite a bit different from what they
are now.
Ameriflight Division Manager Rod Fichter Says:
It started off as mostly bank work, checks, physical checks and over the
years the banks have gotten smart and gone to a scanning system, a lot
of them. So the physical checks are sort of dwindling.
Narrator Says:
So, as the internet has made it drastically easier for banks to operate
in cyber-space, it’s no longer checks and statements that dominate
Ameriflight’s cargo loads.
Cargo aboard Ameriflight planes now ranges from the potentially
life-saving.
Ameriflight Division Manager Rod Fichter Says:
Medical specimens, we'll have things come up here for patients that are
on the operating table early in the morning, as they have to rush this
specimen to the hospital. So the airplane, rather than just checks is
full of a lot of different things.
Narrator Says:
To the four-legged.
Ameriflight Division Manager Rod Fichter Says:
We brought some wolves; some wolves were stranded down in the bay area.
There's a group up here near Olympia, Wolf Haven, they take care of
wolves. We've flown that, we've flown a lot of weird things, but
basically over night it's paper stuff.
Narrator Says:
To the entertaining.
Ameriflight Division Manager Rod Fichter Says:
It could be a DVD for a commercial; it could be a new release of a song
by an artist. That's recording up here and he needs to L.A. that next
day and it'll be there. Super Bowl commercials were filmed up here, sent
down to L.A. for the Super Bowl. To be on the network, we've done that.
Narrator Says:
King County International Airport is owned by King County, but draws no
county funds, relying on tenant fees to support its operations.
In fact, the airport generates almost $40 million in tax money every
year.
That should be the case for some time as tenant surveys have shown that
70 percent expect their future revenues to increase, which will help to
ensure that KCIA will continue to help keep the economy in our region
moving.
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