Occasionally I launch off on a tangent expounding on the underperforming nature of so many local general aviation airports. I did so recently. I will again in the future. You can be sure of that much.
This is not to suggest I have a lack of respect for local airports. Not at all. In fact, I prefer them.
While there are about 500 towered airports in the United States, many of those fine fields are places I’d rather not go. Whether I’m flying my company car, a bright yellow and black C-152, my personal favorite the classic Piper Cub, or some variant of the general aviation family of aircraft, I’d just as soon not have to joust with Boeings and Airbuses in the traffic pattern or on the taxiway.
That’s not for me. I’m more of a non-towered airport kind of guy.
These airports don’t just have the potential to be more friendly and personal in their dealings with transient pilots and passengers, they’re also far more plentiful. The United States contains something on the order of 20,000 non-towered airports. We’re virtually awash in them. And yet, these are the very fields that typically get short shrift from their managing bodies.
There’s a reason for that. Several, in fact. But I’ll focus on the issue that has been the biggest stumbling block in my opinion. And that reason is simply this: Far too many non-towered airport managers don’t really understand what they have to sell.
There, I said it. Mostly because it’s true. You’ve no doubt noticed over the course of your own life that it is a poor salesperson who doesn’t understand the inventory he or she has to peddle to the public. One who doesn’t look for new opportunities to develop and market has lost the bulk of the potential their line of products or services has to attract new customers and clients.
If I were to guess, I would suggest a large percentage of airport directors tasked with managing what they perceive to be a small, local airport, believe their primary purpose is to keep the grass mowed, sell as much avgas as possible, prevent the hangars from falling down, and do whatever the FAA asks of them.
To an extent all of that is true. But it’s not the whole story. Not by a long shot.
Airports are huge. Even the local, general aviation airport that might be considered small potatoes by the local population is actually hundreds, even thousands, of acres in size. That land is generally zoned commercial or industrial. Structures standing on that land can rent at higher per square foot rates than unimproved non-commercial spaces bring in. Sometimes, considerably higher.
Add to that the benefit of commercial and industrial space providing jobs to folks from the local area and you’ve got a recipe for success. If you can envision it. If you can implement it.
Non-towered airports generally consider their bread and butter to be the rows of T-hangars scattered around the grounds. They may have a few larger, commercial hangars. But they sometimes find themselves hamstrung by the small number of larger hangars they own and that limiting factor should a new potential tenant come by looking for a new home.
This is where salesmanship, vision, and an understanding of the core responsibilities of an airport manager really converge into one critical package.
When that new potential tenant shows up, the conversation is often short and disappointing. “We don’t have any hangars that can accommodate you,” is the sad reply. Defeat is built into management’s mindset.
And so, the potential new tenant wanders off into the sunset as the airport continues to underperform, simply because the option of pouring a cup of coffee, sitting down for a longer, more detailed conversation, and getting creative about their options never occurs to the management.
Imagine the difference in revenue, employment opportunities, and fuel sales if our airport manager knew that part of their role involves seeking out opportunities and managing the overall success of the real estate they control.
At least a portion of the airport manager’s job entails real estate development. They’ve got a large chunk of undeveloped land under their control. The goal is to develop that land responsibly in the best interest of the community where it resides.
Could it house a school on site that would expose hundreds of students to careers and lifestyle choices they might never have considered before?
What if management made it a part of their routine to invite aviation-related entrepreneurs to visit and discuss their short- and long-term plans? Those conversations might reveal potential mutual benefit that would result in a dream-come-true scenario for both sides.
Let’s consider a real estate developer who owns a large piece of undeveloped land adjacent to a highway. Imagine they meet a business-minded individual at a dinner party who expresses a desire to find a large warehouse space with an attached office that has highway access. The plan is to employ half a dozen people to start, maybe more in the future if the plan works out. They might even be interested in an option on a neighboring lot, allowing them to expand one day.
The developer doesn’t hang their head and wish they had such a facility to rent. An actual developer of real estate sees opportunity. A discussion ensues. Sketches might be made on napkins. Follow-up phone calls and e-mails result. Eventually the developer says, “Look, if I were to build the facility you want, and put it on my plot of land, and lease it to you for X number of dollars, would you be interested?”
That’s salesmanship. That’s creative thinking. This scenario opens the door to what might happen if the potential customer says, “Yes, I would.”
To which a sharp airport director might answer, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll build that structure to your specs, if you’ll sign a long-term lease for that price.”
A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and before you know it you’ve got progress. And a new employer on the field, and maybe a school that trains their future employees, and all the potential that comes from this success laying the groundwork for what comes next.
I’m just saying, it’s possible.
I agree with all your observations concerning turning an airport into a vibrant, dynamic asset to the entire local community, and beyond. Non-towered airstrips are also my first love, even though most of the things you mention apply to towered airports as well.
I wanted to ‘pile on’ your discussion of the roles & responsibilities of the airport manager.
I’m probably going to upset some good airport managers with my comments…. sorry.
Granted, Covid has forced most airports, and everyone that uses them, to alter the way they operate. Regardless, the obstacles that prevent airports from reaching a very lofty potential are numerous: Politics, policies, politics, budgets, politics, planning issues, politics, personalities, politics…
And, of course, there’s only 24 hours in a day.
But in the bigger, long-term picture–whether it’s towered or not, turning an airport into a showcase facility, where diverse opportunities abound, requires one fundamental ingredient: A professional, FULL-TIME, On-Site Manager, and Support Staff, that are focused on the care and feeding of THAT facility.
Hopefully, they’re not dual or triple “hatted”, and saddled with additional responsibilities, like running the county golf course, or a local marina….
They need to be a visible, daily presence at the airport, and engage with everyone that inhabits it; tenants (including non-aviation ones), users, operators, visitors, vendors…..not just mow the grass, inspect hangar doors and maintain runway lighting systems. (Although someone has to do that, too.) They need to be headquartered in a brick-and-mortar location, not a pick-up truck with a logo on the door.
In addition to “Working Toward ‘Yes’” with those seeking to do business/operate on the airport,
they need to be actively marketing the airport, at home and abroad, not passively waiting to be discovered.
When they’re not engaged directly in airfield activities, managers ought to be pro-actively courting, and educating, the “locals”, and beyond, in ever-expanding circles of influence: Elected leadership, advisory & planning commission(s), individual businesses, service organizations/Rotary/Lions/Kiwanis Clubs, Chamber of Commerce, local & state DOTs, and…the FAA (are you in NPIAS?).
The list is endless; airports can’t have too many friends.
Too many residents still view their local airport as a playground for the rich and their loud toys.
(I paid more for my last car than I did for my last plane.) They may see little-to-no benefit from having the airport in their “backyard”, and of course, there’s always the threat a plane will crash into the neighborhood. Tough to garner local support-especially around master plan update time-with that stigma still attached to us.
They need to fairly, but firmly, enforce ALL “the rules”, including compliance with FAA grant assurances, if they’ve spent AIP dollars. They need to remain impartial when they’re courted by sparing factions. Above all, they need to step in and be the adult when the kids aren’t playing well together, and the airport community splits into competing, self-serving cliques that make it an unhappy, if not unsafe, place to fly.
The cost is there . . . and it isn’t cheap. Municipally owned airports don’t want to make the investment for hangars because 1) they don’t understand them, 2) they don’t want to be landlords, they do it only because they have “inherited” hangars, and 3) the taxpayers would march on city hall with torches and pitchforks if the city built hangars for “those rich playboys and their private airplanes”.
How do they “inherit” hangars? They’ll lease the land to you for 20 years, and after that, the hangar belongs to the city. That means if YOU build a hangar (and YOU pay for it), you have to fully amortize it to zero in 20 years, and then you get to walk away. Cost to build, plus taxes, plus maintenance, plus power, plus plus plus and it is very easy to see why new-build hangars are scarce and the rentals are high. As an investment, it stinks. If you are a big company and can write it all off as an expense for the company G650, that works, but we don’t get to do that.
Building hangars isn’t easy, either. Often the zoning isn’t right (which takes months or years to fix), there are wetlands and protected species issues (which may not be fixable at all, in Florida, your crabgrass has more rights than you do), then you have fire codes which have just been upgraded by NFP regulations to require sprinklers and fire-blocking walls mostly because NFP thinks that airplanes explode and burn spontaneously. (Cars and trucks evidently don’t, so no such requirements exist for your garage.) Further, it is ILLEGAL under NFP code to have more than a quarter tank of fuel in an airplane in a hangar! So now there is a turf war between the NFP and the FAA, which advises us we should keep our tanks full at all times, even for an airplane with less fuel capacity than the average sedan.
Yes, we need hangars, but the numbers flat don’t work and the rules and requirements practically guarantee we won’t get them. We may have to content ourselves with shadeports which are better than nothing, but not by a whole lot. I’ve been trying to find a rational solution to this exact problem for decades (!) and so far, the only way seems to involve LOTS of money, sometimes more than the airplane costs!
Most airport managers should be hanging onto Jamie’s every word — Airport Management 101, of sorts. It all started many, many months ago with Jamie’s piece about standing up to greet and serve a potential customer.
Jamie,
The sad fact is, most aircraft owners will gripe about monthly rental more than $125, when in fact, the true cost for a hanger space may be $350-$500 a month depending on the amenities such as electricity, concrete floor, winch, electric door, etc. And for all this, they get the entire airport facility (runways, taxiways, fueling facility,).
Compare per square foot hangar space with the per square foot cost of the local “You-Store-it” place. In my small town with a towered airport, 8X10 self-storage $110/month. That’s $0.72/sf/mo. Most hangars to accommodate the typical single engine aircraft are 1020 sf. That’s for a T-shaped interior, 40 ft. overhead bi-fold door. Apply that same rate $0.72 /sf/mo x 1040 = $734.40 / month rent. Very few owners are willing to pay that much, but that is the realistic cost.
Plus, the airport has to mow lots of grass & plow lots of snow, & maintain very expensive airfield lighting.
Self-storage space and hangar space are pretty much the same thing, but pilots are getting a bargain. I really understand the costs as I have owned an airplane for over 40 yrs and been an airport manager at several airports. I don’t want to pay more than $125 a month to hangar my plane. But as an airport manager, that doesn’t fly with the local government that is subsidizing the hangars.
Come see St. Mary’s County Maryland (2W6)!
Enlightened and airport savvy developers. The County Government supports their actions. A new Airport Manager who has run a small business and gets cash flow.
A new Maintenance and Avionics shop on the field. The number of T and small box hangars has about doubled in the past few years. Two new 100x100ft hangars and two more are going up. An additional thousand feet of runway will be added this Spring giving us just short of a mile of runway. And we just got a new (to us) courtesy car. 2W6 is just outside the DC SFRA and open for Business! And Recreation!
There is no better feel than to rumble over a grass strip. Did it for 48 years.
Tom