Delta's New Sea-Tac Airport Lounge Gets Port OK

It’s another sign of booming times at Sea-Tac Airport: The Port of Seattle commissioners have approved paying almost $14 million to Delta Airlines to build a new lounge.

The new lounge would be about double the size of Delta's current one. And it'll be centrally located, between the two main airport concourses.

The idea is that port pays the Delta to build this addition, then gets to collect the rent, which would pay off the investment in four years and enrich Sea-Tac forever after.

Airport lounges are comfortable places for people who fly a lot -- or pay a lot.

Delta says it needs the room -- not just for current customers but for future ones too. Its daily Seattle flights have nearly tripled over the last two years.

Delta isn’t the only airline benefiting from Seattle’s hot economy. The parent company of Alaska Airlines reported its highest quarterly profit ever last month.

And Sea-Tac is the fastest-growing of the top 20 airports in the land.

Delta is also a major factor in the port’s planning for an expanded international arrivals area that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Other airlines have complained that Delta would get the most from the project, which they would have to chip in for.

Photo: “Takeoff at Sea-Tac” by Alan Turkus on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)