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Phil Botana is a walking history of the FBO (fixed base operator) business since the 1970s. It’s summed up in this quote: “Before I went to Portland (OR) [to manage Flightcraft], Signature had acquired every FBO that I had worked for.”

I met Botana in 1984. As the communications manager for the National Air Transportation Association outside Washington, I was introduced to Phil as the incoming chair of the association ? perhaps the youngest-ever chair. His FBO resume includes Burlington Northern Airmotive, Van Dusen Air, Butler Aviation, Signature Flight Support, Flightcraft, and today the Tampa International Jet Center at TPA. (For those who are relatively new to the FBO biz, via a series of acquisitions, the evolution more or less is, Burlington Northern became Van Dusen which became Page Avjet which became Signature. Only Flightcraft, which is owned by the Pape family in the Northwest, is not part of the evolutionary chain.)

Of all his experiences, Botana calls Butler “the best job I ever had.” He was teamed up with then-president Bill Boisture and EVP/CFO Jerry Schlesinger. They were tasked, following a change in ownership, with revitalizing the Butler FBO chain, which had at best a mixed reputation for service. One of their tasks included bringing the chain into the era of information technology.

Recalls Botana, “There was a great feeling of accomplishment, from making something with a tarnished reputation in the marketplace begin to improve, and seeing the financial performance follow. It was fun working with a team of great people an see it all come together.

“Butler was really behind the times as far as computer systems went; they had so many manual systems, it was unbelievable. Bill and Jerry, to their credit, decided to leapfrog ahead of the industry- to the tune of a $1 million plus investment.

“The cash flow impact was phenomenal. We figured that it was taking us two to three weeks to turn around transactions- from the time we sold the fuel until the time we received payment. A couple of months after the system went online; we were getting our cash two days after the transaction took place. The fuel sales were something like $65-70 million a year then. You figure out what two weeks of interest is on that much money and it created the working capital for the company.

“But the real bonus was the data we were able to mine: who was doing business with us and where, as well as where they weren’t doing business with us.”

For more on Botana’s newest endeavor, the start-up of the Tampa International Jet Center (www.tampajet.com), look for the upcoming NBAA Convention Issue of AIRPORT BUSINESS (November/December 2005). For more on the NBAA show visit www.nbaa.org.

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Kim Showalter heads up Showalter Flying Service based at the Orlando Executive Airport, site of the upcoming 2005 NBAA Convention’s Static Display of aircraft. The event that was originally scheduled to take place in New Orleans, but Hurricane Katrina has forced the association to relocate its premier aviation show to November 9-11 at the Orlando Convention Center (www.nbaa.org).

Showalter’s crew has handled the Static Display three times before, along with a host of outsiders either brought in from other operations or local volunteers, many from the local Experimental Aircraft Association chapter. Kim reports that typically SFS has some 35 full-time employees; for the Static, she says the daily staff will number about 100.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Static- other than the millions of dollars in business aircraft situated on one ramp- is the learning experience, both for Showalter and Sheltair (the competing FBO at Executive) employees and for those from other FBOs who have volunteered to help.

Says Kim Showalter, “We will pay to bring in probably ten line service people from other FBOs around the country. We’ve done this so many times, we go back to the same ones- Banyan in Ft. Lauderdale; McCreery in McAllen [TX]; Aero Sport in San Augustine [FL].

“There are only four or five airports in the country that ever get to do this. It’s a great opportunity, and a great opportunity for our guys to work with other people. This is where people are sending you the very best they have, and how lucky are we that they take the best away from their businesses [to help]. And they take that experience home.

“We pay them; we feed them; we clothe them, and put them up in hotels.”

There’s a learning experience here, one that Showalter Flying Service and a few others across the industry have realized and capitalized on. Perhaps NBAA in future years can put together some type of competition which would allow line and customer service employees to compete for the chance to work the static. Could be a good way for FBO employees around the country to get a first-hand look at how one of the premier events in business aviation is handled. It’s unparalleled direct, on-the-job training.

In fact, there may be a lesson here for other fixed base operations and airports as well on the value of sharing job experiences by way of sharing employees.

We welcome industry input.

U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-FL) was on hand at last week’s F. Russell Hoyt National Airports Conference in Tampa, speaking of the need to not bail out failing air carriers and to hit hard once again on one of his favorite topics: the Transportation Security Administration.

Rep. Mica, whose district sits between Orlando and Jacksonville, says the answer for the airlines is for them to have viable businesses, to increase fares.

Regarding TSA, Mica says he wants to encourage airports to participate in the opt-out passenger screening program and seeks to alleviate airports of liability by way of wording in federal legislation expected to be unveiled this week in Washington. The U.S. needs to move from a centralized, Soviet model, says Mica, to one that is more efficient. Mica also wants to encourage more private sector participation in the security battle, which he says will lead to quicker implementation of new technologies  thus leading to even more efficiency.

One other comment from Rep. Mica: The federal government needs to pay 100 percent of the costs to install in-line screening systems at U.S. commercial airports.

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