Floatplane getaways
San Juan Islands, British Columbia
among Kenmore Air destinations

Photo courtesy of Kenmore Air Along with trips to tourist destinations such as Victoria, British Columbia, Kenmore Air also provides sightseeing flights over Seattle and the Puget Sound as well as the Cascade Mountains, where the company’s floatplanes make a lake landing.

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

Leisure time means not only relaxing from regular day-to-day cares and schedules but also a complete change of pace or trying something new.

Few new things offer a better change of pace, leisure experiences and opportunities for stories to tell family and friends when you return than a Kenmore Air floatplane flight into the San Juan Islands for a resort stay or a trip into remote mountain lakes for summer fishing or relaxing.

With floatplane flight centers in Kenmore on Lake Washington or on Lake Union in downtown Seattle, it’s easy to arrange flights all over the Pacific Northwest with a minimum of traveling. There’s always room for a couple heading for a romantic getaway trip or a family going to Victoria, British Columbia, for a weekend or a week’s stay.

In these times when freeways are clogged on weekends, particularly holiday weekends, and ferry docks have lines of cars backed up waiting for boats, taking a leisurely flight over it all keeps the real meaning of “leisure” in your trip.

From spring into fall, charter flights keep the skies filled with Kenmore’s Beavers and Otters on aerial trips to Victoria, British Columbia, and the San Juan Islands, where many Northwesterners have summer homes; some residents commute to Seattle for business; and other passengers visit bed-and-breakfasts.

Kenmore Air also provides sightseeing flights over Seattle and the Puget Sound; into the Cascade Mountains, with a landing on Diablo Lake in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area; to Poets Cove Resort and Spa in Canada’s Gulf Islands; and flights to the San Juan Islands for yacht or kayak excursions in search of Orca whales that live in the area, according to General Manager Todd Banks.

“Things just keep going at Kenmore Air because of a lot of dedicated people, a lot of support from the aviation community and because we continue to always try to treat people right, as we have for 60 years,” said Banks.

Flights into the Victoria, British Columbia, harbor provide opportunities to stay at the historic Fairmont Empress Hotel, the Hotel Grand Pacific adjacent to the Parliament building or the Laurel Point Inn on the harbor, among many others. At the top of visitors’ sightseeing lists are the Butchart gardens and the world famous Royal B.C. Museum.

Promoting its flights in travel publications and local news media, Kenmore Air also features nearly 50 online specials for those who make reservations on its Web site, at www.kenmoreair.com, providing photos, maps and details of all of its scheduled and chartered flights, services and aircraft.

Kenmore Air is a family-owned seaplane airline celebrating 60 years of flying service in the Pacific Northwest. It’s now the largest floatplane airline in the continental United States.

More than 1.25 million passengers have flown with the airline over those six decades. Today, Kenmore Air flies more than 2 million miles annually, carrying more than 75,000 people each year for business, recreation and commuting.

The airline’s reputation for quality service, skilled flying and trips to exciting destinations has been built on word-of-mouth promotion. Founder and famed aviator Bob Munro died in 2000, but the enduring business continues to grow with his son, Gregg, at the controls as president of the 250-employee enterprise; his daughter, Lucy, as office manager, and his grandson, Banks, as general manager.

Kenmore Air Harbor began as a business in 1946 when Bob Munro and two high school friends — Jack Mines and Reg Collins — were reunited after World War II. Two were mechanics, including Munro, and only one, Mines, was a pilot. They started the company with no business plan, no growth plan, no marketing plan and a single airplane — an Aeronca Model K on aluminum floats.

Eventually, Munro learned to fly, took over the business and began expanding the airline’s services. Rather than having a dry-land base with thousands of feet of runway, Munro had thousands and thousands of feet of runway on the surface of Lake Washington on the east side of Seattle.

In the late 1940s, Kenmore Air became a Seabee dealer for the Northwest, helping to make Republic’s seaplane a popular aircraft in an area with a wealth of water landing strips, from Puget Sound to mountain lakes. In the 1950s, Kenmore began its charter flights with new Cessna aircraft. By the early 1960s, the airline had added a new hangar and office building to its Kenmore seaplane base and acquired its first de Havilland Beaver, which led to decades of flying this popular Alaskan floatplane.

By the 1980s, Kenmore Air had acquired Otter Air, a small seaplane company with scheduled service from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia. By the late 1990s, Kenmore acquired its primary competitor, Lake Union Air, with its headquarters in the shadow of Seattle’s downtown high-rises. Later, more Turbo Otters were added to the fleet to meet increased passenger demand, creating what today is the largest Otter-equipped airline in the world.

Today’s fleet of seaplanes includes the seven-passenger Beaver, turbine-powered Beavers, turbine Otters and a Cessna Caravan, the fastest plane in the lineup, carrying up to nine passengers, plus two Cessna 180s and two Super Cubs used for flight training.

A year ago, Kenmore Air Express launched five flights a day, seven days a week, between Boeing Field and William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. To make the flights even more attractive compared to long drives from Port Angeles to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Kenmore Air provides not only less-than-an-hour flights but also free shuttle transportation from Boeing Field to Sea-Tac.

For more information about Kenmore Air, visit www.kenmoreair.com or call 800-543-9595.

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