All intercontinental passenger flights through Portland have halted and the major airlines serving the city have slashed the total flights by nearly 80% during the coronavirus outbreak.

The few remaining flights are nearly empty – the number of people flying in and out of PDX is down 94% compared to this time last year.

So the Port of Portland, which runs Portland International Airport, has embarked on a major cost-cutting plan – seeking to reduce expenses by $20 million in the fiscal year that begins this summer. That’s a 12% cut to the port’s budget through employee furloughs, cutbacks in construction projects and other reductions yet to be identified.

“I have unwavering faith in our ability to get through this. At the same time I have little hope it’s going to be easy,” port director Curtis Robinhold told a port commission meeting this week.

The port is one of the region’s major economic hubs, managing the airport, ocean cargo and rail shipments. Port executives indicated this week they are seeing signs of the virus’ impact in every aspect of their operations – but air travel may be the most dramatic.

“In the short run, over the next two months, unless something dramatic changes we think we’re bouncing along the bottom here in terms of activity levels,” chief operating officer Dan Pippenger said at Wednesday’s meeting, conducted by teleconference. He said airline schedules show dramatic decreases among the airport’s three busiest carriers:

· Alaska Airlines has reduced its daily flights from 140 a year ago to 23 now

· Southwest has dropped from 36 to 19

· Delta has cut from 31 to 12

Some of those scheduled flights are being canceled, Pippenger said, and he said schedules through June showed continued reductions. Those planes that do come and go as scheduled are only 10% to 20% full, he said. Normally, 85% of seats are occupied.

There are a few hopeful signs. The 747 cargo jets that serve Portland continue flying out three times a week, taking Nike Air soles and other Oregon-made products to destinations overseas.

But rail and marine cargo through the port is also down sharply and imports arriving from overseas are often sitting idle at the port.

Keith Leavitt, the port’s chief commercial officer, described “an endless sea of finished automobiles” at the port, cars built in other countries intended for dealers in the U.S. that now have no market for them.

The port employs 755. Most will be on unpaid furlough for one day per month for the next 15 months. Robinhold, the port director, will take two furlough days each month.

The furloughs will save about $5 million, the port estimates, but it expects to need much deeper cuts. Executives are evaluating possible operational cutbacks and delays in pending construction and maintenance projects.

But the port said it wants to ensure fundamental activities are in place to ramp up again quickly whenever the economy does.

“We’re an export-oriented port. We’re an export-oriented state,” Leavitt wrote. “We want to make sure the supply chain is working.”

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699

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