Kenmore Air Harbor, Inc.

A fantastic place, nestled in the beautiful landscape of Lake Washington. This place holds history, with flying radial engine seaplanes that are beautiful on the water. For an Aviation enthusiast and lover of airplanes, it is pure nostalgia and fascination watching these piston powered machines take to the air along with the newer turbine powered brethren especially coming from a place where such radial engine airplanes are rare, and seaplanes are virtually nonexistent. It is a definite must-go place for Aviation enthusiasts, especially those visiting Seattle. The fascinating and unique paint jobs on some of the planes in the Kenmore Air fleet are definitely hard to miss. One could also inquire about experiencing these radial engine seaplanes firsthand in flight, though best to check availability. Would highly recommend.

I booked a seaplane rating 7 weeks in advance. Told them when I booked that I own a super cub, am an active pilot, and had flown float planes. I studied their materials and came prepared. Flew down from Alaska being sure to book extra time to accommodate weather or maintenance issues. I reminded them when I arrived on Tuesday that I expected to be ready for a check ride quickly. They told me the in house DPE was available every day but Sunday. On Thursday afternoon when I was ready they told me the DPE was gone and not back until next week. Back up DPE was also gone all weekend. The CFI did the best she could, but there was no observable help from the management. I asked to speak with someone in charge, was told to wait fifteen minutes for Austin, he never showed up. I told them I was leaving and Austin could call me if he cared, he must not have. Anyways the flying and the instruction was fine but that's of no use if there is no DPE on schedule. Pretty lame to leave a traveling float trainee hanging with no way to get the rating. Even lamer not to even care. Use caution and confirm the DPE's availability.

This is my first time to take the float plane with Kenmore Air. 25 pounds 1 bag allowed for each passenger. 30min checkin before departure time. Very quick and smooth check in, no boarding pass! Under the table in the waiting room, it’s a shining plane engine! 1 pilot, 5 passengers, 65 min total flight time, 1 stop at Deer Harbor, then about 5 minutes to land at West Sound.

This was our first time flying with Kenmore air. The experience overall was very pleasant. We were able to park our car and leave it there for a few days for free, which was very nice. It happened to be a very nice day, so we were able to wait outside for our flight , but if it is rainy, there’s a nice indoor area as well. The staff was very friendly and the check-in was super easy. We were there an hour before flight and so we just watched the sea planes, takeoff and land and had a nice experience. The actual experience of the flight was wonderful, we had two different pilots each way and each of them were very helpful and knowledgeable. We felt very safe, and overall just had a really nice experience with the flight and with Kenmore air. We flew directly from Kenmore to Victoria, and the flight was around 35 minutes. We had to go through customs in Canada, but it was pretty fast and easy. The takeoff and landing was very smooth.

Amazing experience. I took the introductory flight lesson, and I couldn’t recommend it more. The instructor Connor was very nice: he explained in the detail how the aircraft works and provided an experience tailored to what I wanted (more flying, less landings). The area around is beautiful and makes the flight even more special. Definitely recommended!