With an eye toward expanding its services in the Virgin Islands, Seaborne Aviation is selling its operations in Alaska.
The sale of Seaborne’s five-year-old northern operation, said John Schildroth, the company’s president and chief executive officer, will translate into more staffing, aircraft and routes for the Caribbean. But that growth won’t occur overnight, he said.
"We’re going to do this slowly," Schildroth said. "The first thing will be a new hangar and terminal."
Seaborne plans to move its current passenger terminal in King’s Alley to a new facility at the old seaplane ramp near Watergut. Construction will begin in April and take several months, Schildroth said. Toward the end of the year, the company will assess the feasibility of flying to St. John, San Juan and Tortola.
"When we get done building the hangar and putting all the people in place, we’ll be looking at new routes," Schildroth said.
The company’s immediate plans, though, are to beef up its local workforce. Schildroth said Seaborne will need to fill a variety of jobs, from reservation, customer service and administrative positions to aircraft mechanics, certified dispatchers and pilots.
The biggest demand for new employees, Schildroth said, will be in specialized positions.
"The technical jobs are going to increase," he said. "I would imagine the non-skilled technical positions will increase 1 to 2 percent."
Although Schildroth said the company will comply with its Industrial Development Commission beneficiary requirements of hiring a set number of local residents, it won’t be easy, he said, because of a lack of territorial programs that offer instruction in specialized fields like airframe mechanics.
"There are no vocational schools here that teach the services we need," he said. "So pilots and certified mechanics have to come from the mainland."
Schildroth urged any local residents with such training to contact the company.
