Seatac Seacrets: Navigating the Seattle Airport

By Dale Stubbart

The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) or Seatac is one of my favorite airports. I'll reveal the secrets about what makes it so great in this book. These are secrets I've gleaned from my many trips through the airport and from doing some additional research. Seattle is a prime west coast destination. Seatac has direct flights to Alaska, Hawaii, and several continental US states. Seatac is a great place to relax, eat, shop, and get onto or off of your plane. You just might see me in at Seatac. Look for the sideburns. And I'll be wearing a smile because Seatac is a Happy Airport.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Stubbart
• Release date: Mar 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201173036

Book preview

Introduction

Seatac is Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The Airport code is SEA. This book will tell you about several features of Seatac.

You might already know some of those features. However, many of them are not known by lots of people. Therefore I call them secrets or Seacrets.

To make these Seacrets even clearer, I’ve made this a large print book. That makes it easier for many of us to read.

I’ve also included a title on the spine of this book. That makes it easier for many of us to find.

I have flown in and out of Seatac over 1,000 times. And I’ve gotten to know my way around the Airport pretty well. It is one of my favorite Airports.

This book includes my knowledge about Seatac. That knowledge comes from spending lots of time in that Airport and from the research I’ve done about it.

Seatac is officially spelled Sea-Tac (with a hyphen) by the Port of Seattle which owns and runs the Airport. Yet I and several others spell it Seatac (without a hyphen) or simply SEA which is the IATA Airport Code.

IATA is the International Airport Transportation Association. The FAA LID (Federal Aviation Administration Location IDentifier) code is also SEA. The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) code for SEA is KSEA.

ICAO codes are used for official purposes such as Air Traffic Control and Dispatcher’s Flight Plans. IATA codes are used for your ticket.

There is also a City of Seatac, WA. They spell their City SeaTac (Capital S, Capital T, no hyphen). SeaTac is a 10 square mile City which surrounds the Seatac Airport.

Seatac, whether you’re referring to the Airport or to the City is midway between Seattle and Tacoma. Hence the name. In case you’re wondering, the Airport came first, by about one-half century.

I’ll mostly be covering the Airport in this book, as I only ride through the City to get to and from the Airport. I never stop to explore it. Therefore, I don’t know that much about the City.

Seatac (the Airport) offers its own Secret’s page at https://www.portseattle.org/blog/secrets-sea-tac-Airport. I’ll try not to repeat those in this book. However, the best one is all of the support for bicycles.

There is also a Twitter hashtag of #SeaTacHacks. Searching this hashtag on Twitter will let you know tricks for navigating the Airport for your upcoming (in days) trip.

In addition to seacrets, I’ll also include suggestions for improvements at Seatac. Who knows? Perhaps somebody on the Seatac Board will read this book and act on my suggestions.

If you have suggestions for changes at Seatac, you can fill out the form at https://www.portseattle.org/form/sea-tac-contact-form. You can also try to contact the Port of Seattle, which operates the Airport, via the Seatac App.

I tried to do this. However, there was something funky going on with the app and it kept sending the form before I had completely filled it out. Perhaps I should send them a suggestion to fix the form on their app.

One final note before we get started: Things change and Seatac doesn’t report to me. So don’t hold me responsible if things which I write in this book are no longer so.

By the Numbers

Let’s get the boring part over with first. Call them statistics, if that makes these numbers easier for you to digest.

Seatac is the 8th busiest Airport in the US. The Airport was built in 1944. Over 30 passenger airlines now operate out of this Airport. More than 10 cargo airlines also operate out of Seatac.

The top 3 destinations from Seatac are Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Anchorage. The airline with the most flights out of Seatac by far is Alaska Airlines.

ALASKA AIRLINES MOVED their headquarters from Anchorage