Redmond Airport still lacks direct flights to Portland – and a round-trip ticket via Seattle can cost you $1,150

Update: Adding video, Bend man's concerns, Airport director hopes for direct Portland flights this year)

'How can a family income afford to fly to Portland?'

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Redmond Airport lost its nonstop flights to and from Portland in November 2021, and one frequent flier attests that it can get mighty expensive to fly there via Seattle.

Bend resident Michael Case told NewsChannel 21 that his most recent round-trip to PDX by going first to Sea-Tac cost was $836, while also booking 12 days in advance.

For Case, the expense is adding up. He says he flies out of RDM about 75 times a year. 

"What if somebody needed to get to Portland for a family reason?" Case asked. "And they had to pay out of pocket that steep of an airfare?"

Case travels out of Redmond Airport for work on average six times a month.

His expense account covers the hundreds of dollars it takes to travel nonstop to Portland, but he knows that's not the case for everyone.

"How can a family income afford to pay $800 to fly to Portland? They can't." he said. "But I guarantee, people are being forced to do that. and that's too bad."

Redmond Airport Director Zach Bass says RDM has no control over ticket prices: "It's fully an airline decision."

The skyrocketing prices for-last minute travel to Portland date back to November 2021, when Delta, American, and Alaska Airlines all stopped offering direct flights to PDX.

Bass hopes that commercial airlines make the choice to bring nonstop flights back this year.

"I think they recognize they might have brought down the regional traffic too much during Covid," he said. "And so, we're hoping that over the next year, we'll see that back in place, where we have that Portland flight."

According to flights.google.com, the cost of a flight to PDX via Seattle from RDM for Saturday, May 13 to Wednesday, May 17 will cost a passenger around $1,100. Meanwhile, that trip from Saturday, June 3 to Wednesday June 7 only costs about $257 round-trip.

"I don't think that they want Central Oregonians on a castaway island out in the middle of the state with no access to the biggest city center in our state, as a result of their pricing strategies" Case claimed on Thursday.

Redmond's airport director is optimistic about nonstop flights to Portland returning.

In the meantime, Bass is hoping Central Oregonians can be patient while waiting for nonstop flights to return.

"We want flights to Portland," he said. "We've pushed for them since they've been taken away. It's just going to take a little while."

Case said, "This isn't an outrageous thing, to require a direct commuter flight that's affordable to our biggest city."

RDM is projecting more than 1.1 million passengers will fly out of the airport this year. That figure will make it RDM's busiest year on record.

We reported just over a year ago about the end of Alaska Airlines' direct Portland flights, and Airport Director Zachary Bass said they hoped the flight option would return in 2023.

We also reached out to Alaska Airlines for comment on the situation, but did not hear back as of this writing.