CANNON BEACH – SeaPort Air, the new commercial flight service in Astoria, wants to help people in Cannon Beach and Arch Cape “grow their businesses” by bringing customers to town, the company’s regional manager told the Cannon Beach City Council Tuesday night.

John Lansing met with the council to discuss how local areas could benefit from daily flights from Astoria to and from Portland and Newport and a connecting flight to Seattle from Portland.

But first, Lansing answered recent criticism that the airline is being subsidized by $4.5 million in state and federal funds, while each flight has averaged only 1.65 passengers. Each flight is subsidized by as much as $750.

Lansing said the criticism coming from the Portland Metro area “seems to show that urban areas are concerned about subsidies going to outlying areas.” He named Portland projects – the local street car, Tri-Met and a bridge between Portland and Vancouver, Wash., – which also are subsidized. He suggested that urban areas were biased against more remote areas in the state.

“It’s a work in pro-gress,” Lansing said. “Our numbers are ex-ceeding what we expected for the first couple of months.”

The airline will be adjusting Friday and weekend flight schedules for Washington passengers, he said, and billboards are going up along Interstate-5 in the Seattle area reminding residents that they could easily fly to the Oregon Coast to watch a sunset that night.

“We’re trying to make this thing happen,” Lansing said. “The more bodies we put on the planes, the less subsidy we have to have.”

City Councilor Sam Steidel questioned how passengers would travel to Cannon Beach after landing in Astoria.

“One of your biggest hurdles is bringing a high-end visitor from the airport to Cannon Beach,” said Steidel, who asked if a shuttle service was planned.

Lansing said second home owners who visit the area often could park their cars at the airport, and other visitors could rent cars from local agencies. The airline is talking to the Sunset Empire Transit District about providing bus service from the airport.

In other business during its work session, the council discussed purchasing the building operated by the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce. Although Mayor Mike Morgan has supported the purchase from the chamber, which is undergoing critical financial struggles, the council agreed informally that it won’t buy the building unless the chamber is anxious to sell it and willing to negotiate.

The possibility of selling the building came up in a town hall meeting between the chamber and about 80 business operators in March. A straw vote indicated that about half of the businesses wanted the chamber to sell. Since then, the chamber has become an all-volunteer organization, and a 10-member committee is researching how its operations could be restructured. Included in the restructuring options are ways that the building could be marketed and rented more often at higher fees than it is now. The fees could bring in enough revenue to support the chamber’s operations, according to some estimates.

Another meeting of the chamber’s “Restructuring and Bylaws Committee” will be held at 5:30 p.m. tonight at City Hall.