My Bias Diminishes
True confession time: I have long been biased against airports at which the fuel is sold by a guvmint body, be it city, county, or other. This is based on years of flying general aviation aircraft in and out of (usually) smallish airports coast to coast and border to border.
This week, as Paul Harvey might say, I saw the other side of the story.
It was the Elizabethton (TN) Municipal Airport. I was there to meet a friend who flies, believe or not, an orange—repeat, orange, and I do mean totally orange—Cessna 210. Elizabethton has a population of not quite 14,000, so I expected to see the typical small airport with several Cessna Skyhawks, a Champ, and a decades-old Piper Aztec with a flat tire. I was amazed. I arrived to see a Pilatus depart, an MU-2 on the ramp, and a Citation in the hangar. This was an alive airport.
The fuel was sold by the city, but—surprise, surprise—the front counter and ramp employees were eager and friendly. They looked good in company shirts and treated us as if we were topping off a Gulfstream instead of putting 30-something gallons into an orange 210. As I waited, a line person reminded me that soft drinks were free.
The airport manager, Randy Musick, is a friendly sort, proud of his airport and evidently a prime source of the friendly service. He urged me to come back during the next NASCAR race at nearby Bristol, TN, suggesting that I just sit in a chair on the ramp and watch the frenzied activity. He promised the mix of corporate, race crew, banner towing, and pleasure craft would boggle the mind.
I am definitely going to take him up on that. I’ll sit in that chair and try to look as if I’m waiting on a Boeing Business Jet.
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Now, for Dave’s comment.
I have met many such managers myself. They do exist.
Sometimes they are doing exactly what their bosses hired them to do - attract more “heavy iron” to the airport to improve financial prospects. Tht’s one reason I think everyone who has an interest in the airport should attend airport board meeetings. You need to know what is being planned - what is the board thinking? Often, if you don’t know these things early in the plans, it is too late to change them.
Good luck and thanks for writing.
Ralph Hood
First, thanks to John Eagerton for his comment.
For those who don’t know, John Eagerton is actually Dr. John Eagerton, Alabama Aeronautics Bureau Director. He is one of the few people I have known who quite literally started out washing airplanes (way back when I was selling them) and went on to rise high in the business.
I have no doubt that Dr. Eagerton is quite correct–we will see more and more guvmint bodies selling fuel at smallish airports. I remain unconvinced that this is necessarily a good thing, but we will see. I certainly hope so, for the good of the industry.
Thanks for writing, Dr. Eagerton.
There is an airport manager who, everyday, provides the answer to the question “How can we provide better service.” A true contrast to the environment at our airport.
At the county airport I fly out of, in Illinois, (a reliever for O’Hare and Midway)the airport manager seems more focused on answering the question “How can we develop the corporate jet and turbo-prop market and ignore, or at most, tolerate, the single engine piston market ?”
This attitude has resulted in many empty hangars, a near empty North ramp, companies serving the piston and training markets going out of business, and the dissolution of any semblance of a cohesive airport community.
The airport manager comes from a business real estate development background. He’s not a pilot, and appears to know nothing, and doesn’t seem intersted in flying. There appears to be no pilot on the Airport Authority Board. They seem mostly to be Real Estate Developer people.
As we used to say in the 60s, “It’s a bummer, man…”
Ralph,
Your bias against the sale of fuel by the local governments that own and operate the vast majority of small general aviation airports may be tested even more in the future. I think you’ll see this trend expand in the future and that services at our small GA airports will go the way of “full-service” gas stations (when was the last time you got your windshield cleaned and the air pressure in your tires checked?) It appears that it is getting harder to recruit and retain good FBOs for our small GA airports, and if the airports are to survive, the local governments that own and operate the airport will be forced to provide the refueling service themselves, either with self-service systems or full or part-time personnel.
Could be, Clyde, but it was a real experience.
Ralph Hood
I think one of us must be dreaming.
Clyde