The two airlines operating out of Redmond Airport are showing good employment growth this year, with strong regional demand helping the carriers buck a national trend of airline cutbacks.

According to a recent federal report, St. George, Utah-based SkyWest Airlines was one of only five regional airlines in the top 12 to increase employment between April 2005 and April 2006. The airline, which operates United Express and Delta Connection flights in Redmond, added 713 jobs nationally during that period, pushing the number of full-time employees to 8,174.

Meanwhile, Seattle-based Horizon Air reported adding 63 jobs in the West so far this year for a total of 3,969. It’s actively looking for more employees to service new routes, likely including Central Oregon-based workers for the Redmond-to-Los Angeles flight starting Aug. 1, company officials say.

”We’re on a hiring spree right now,” said Jen McSkimming, Horizon’s media relations manager.

”Whenever we add a new aircraft, we are always looking at the demand for new employees,” McSkimming said.

”At this time, we believe that demand will call for more employees (in Redmond). But exactly how many? We’re still working that out.”

Nationally, Horizon needs pilots, flight attendants, maintenance workers and other operations-related crew members.

Horizon and SkyWest are bucking trends by national network airlines, many of which have slashed employees as part of drastic cost-cutting initiatives, some driven by bankruptcy.

Of the top six airlines in the country, only Houston-based Continental Airlines increased full-time jobs between April 2005 and April 2006.

For SkyWest, the employment growth reflects the airline’s ability to offer low-cost services to national carriers like United and Delta, said spokeswoman Sabrena Suite.

”Overall, we’ve been growing to help our partners (like Delta and United),” Suite said. ”There’s constant pressure to keep up with partner demands.”

For the most part, national network carriers determine which routes SkyWest serves and they also handle the ticket sales. SkyWest then operates the flights for the big carriers, getting paid a predetermined amount for the services.

In Redmond, United launched weekend flights to Denver earlier this month, and Delta initiated the Salt Lake City service in March 2005.

”Most of the new jobs are operational, (positions) ensuring on-time services, safety, maintenance, and quality issues,” Suite said. ”We try to keep administrative additions down as much as possible.”

SkyWest isn’t looking for additional employees in Central Oregon at this time, she said.

Currently, Redmond Airport is experiencing record levels of foot traffic. In addition to airline employees, airport management reported almost 190,000 passenger boardings last year, an all-time high. It’s on pace to beat those numbers this year.

Redmond Airport Manager Carrie Novick said the airport has no control over how many employees an airline houses in the available space at the terminal. But Novick added it’s clear the space at the current terminal may not be enough if either airline increases its local employees.

”There’s no room,” she said. ”Everyone’s out of room. The back room was built to accommodate (operations for) 18- to 19-seat aircraft. Flash forward to today, and you have Horizon planning to bring in 76-seat planes. And SkyWest already has 50-seaters here.”

Currently, SkyWest’s 22 local employees occupy 1,828 square feet of space at Redmond Airport, and Horizon’s 22 workers are housed in a 1,509-square-foot space.

Novick said the lack of space is one of the key reasons the airport is planning a new terminal, on which construction is scheduled to begin next year. The new terminal would be twice the size of the current one. The expansion is estimated to cost $35 million.

”I suspect that (Horizon and SkyWest’s) demand for space will change (with the new routes),” Novick said.

AIRLINE EMPLOYMENT ESTIMATES, April 2005-April 2006 (% change)

National network carriers

1. American, 75,000 – 74,000 (-1.3%)

2. United, 56,000 – 54,000 (-3.6%)

3. Delta, 53,000 – 46,000 (-13.2%)

4. Continental, 32,000 – 34,000 (+6.3%)

5. Northwest, 38,000 – 30,000 (-21.1%)

6. US Airways, 22,000 – 20,000 (-9.1%)

Regional carriers

1. American Eagle, 9,472 – 9,271 (-2.1%)

2. SkyWest, 7,461 – 8,174 (+9.6%)

3. ExpressJet, 6,459 – 6,528 (+1.1%)

4. Comair, 6,314 – 6,221 (-1.5%)

5. Atlantic Southeast*, 5,447 – 5,434 (-0.2%)

*Owned by SkyWest