The evolution of transportation to the new airport on Akun Island may ultimately lead to a watercraft that crawls on land, replacing the rotary blades that will probably soon replace the spendy and frequently useless hovercraft which often sits idle because of strong winds and waves.
The Akutan hovercraft's days could be coming to an end, depending on the prices offered by helicopter operators, according to Aleutians East Borough manager Rick Gifford. The hovercraft costs taxpayers $2.5 million a year, under a one-year contract that contains 90-day termination clause that the borough hopes to activate as soon as possible.
The request for proposals calls for a chopper that can carry at least six passengers plus the U.S. mail. A decision is expected in a couple of months by the borough assembly, said Gifford, who said a longterm solution might float and also crawl.
A Ketchikan company, Amphib Alaska, is drawing up plans for the borough's consideration of an amphibious boat that moves on land with tracks like an Army tank. Amphib is owned by Randy Johnson, former owner of Alaska Ship and Dry Dock, said his son, Tyler Johnson who declined to discuss the proposal until borough officials have a chance to look it over.
The hovercraft now carries passengers and freight across the water from the new airport that opened last September, and the village of Akutan with a huge Trident Seafoods plant that provides most of the business.
Milder spring weather produced a "pretty good May" for hovercraft performance, making the airport run on 23 days, with just seven days shut down by wind and wave conditions and another day when the plane didn't come.
May's relatively strong showing gave the hovercraft a 74 percent reliability rating for that month, compared to an overall average of 57 percent since September, said Gifford, who didn't have the lowest monthly rating available.
The hovercraft operator is Hoverlink, a division of Kvichak Marine in Seattle, and general manager Marty Robbins said any mode of transportation faces challenges in the Akutan environment.
The amphibious alternative, he said, is "an unproven technology. All they have is a prototype." He added that it could take longer to get the Coast Guard approval, compared to a conventional vessel. He compared it to the Ducks, the military amphibians with wheels frequently used for tourism in the Lower 48. Another such surplus amphibious vessel was once converted into a Bristol Bay gillnet boat in the Egegik district about 20 years ago, leading to complaints that its agility in shallow waters actually turned the Moby Duck into an illegal setnetter masquerading as a drift boat if it rested on the bottom while fishing.
As for a helicopter, well, he said, sometimes when the weather is good for the hovercraft, it's bad for aviation because of fog. This month, for instance, sea conditions were "ideal" for the hovercraft, but planes couldn't land because pilots couldn't see the runway. That could change, though, once instrument approach equipment is installed. But for now, visual flight rules mean if the runway is invisible because of fog, the plane circles around for a while, and then returns to Unalaska without landing on Akun.
When he has landed in Akun during no-hovercraft days, he said he's overnighted at the Surf Bay Inn, a "Conex box" camp built for the Knik workers who constructed the airport, and now operated as a hotel by the city of Akutan.
The accommodations were comfortable, with cable television that worked most of the time, free high quality wireless Internet service, plus games including pool tables and table tennis tables. The food is good too, especially the prime rib served one night each week, Robbins said.
"The hovercraft is way too expensive to operate, and has problems," said Gifford. The borough owns and operates the vessel that rides above the water on a cushion of air between Akun Island, and Akutan Island, about seven miles away.
The hovercraft costs $3 million a year to operate, and only brings in $500,000 in passenger fares and freight fees, Gifford said.
The borough hopes the replacement transportation, helicopter or boat, will get the job done for $1 million a year, Gifford said. As it stands, a $2.5 million borough subsidy is too expensive, he said.
The contract is based on an hourly rate of $2,500 per hour for 1,000 hours per year. Fuel costs are extra, and the hovercraft uses 80 gallons of diesel per hour. The vessel is operated by a four-member crew, including a captain, pilot, deckhand and engineer. Two crews work the vessel on three-week rotations, Robbins said last year.
The hovercraft formerly served King Cove. The little village and big fish plant was formerly serviced by Peninsula Airways, which last year stopped flying its 1940s-vintage amphibious Grumman Goose from the airport in Dutch Harbor, landing on the water in front of Akutan.
The new $50 million airport on Akun opened in September, now serviced by Grant Aviation flying from Dutch Harbor with federal Essential Air Service funding. Pen Air pulled out of rural Alaska village service, and sold its small planes to Grant.
Pen Air continues to fly to larger rural Alaska hub communities in commuter planes. However, in a transcontinental shift, the airline has found a very familiar funding source on the East Coast. The airline now has a passenger check-in desk in Boston's Logan Airport, for EAS-subsidized flights to remote communities in northern Maine and upstate New York. In the summer, Pen Air flies non-subsidized flights from Boston to the upscale vacation destination of Bar Harbor, Maine.
Jim Paulin can be reached at paulinjim(at)yahoo.com