Airport Board Seeks Less Turbulent Times

Bill Bentley wipes down his experimental RV6A plane Wednesday in his hangar at Fayetteville Executive Airport. The airport receives a substantial portion of its income from renting 81 T-hangers. The hangers are shaped like a T to accommodate the tail of aircraft.
Bill Bentley wipes down his experimental RV6A plane Wednesday in his hangar at Fayetteville Executive Airport. The airport receives a substantial portion of its income from renting 81 T-hangers. The hangers are shaped like a T to accommodate the tail of aircraft.

— Another disappointing month at the Fayetteville Executive Airport has officials brainstorming what can be done to turn things around.

A report presented to the board Thursday showed 8,309 flights have taken off and landed at Drake Field through April. That’s an 11 percent drop from the first four months of 2010.

Fuel sales by the airport’s fixed-base operator, Million Air, have fallen 15 percent.

Hangar rentals have held relatively steady, but the airport’s largest hangar remains vacant.

The idea a sluggish economy is grounding the general aviation industry isn’t lost on board members. According to recent data from the Federal Aviation Administration, general aviation flights dropped 5 percent last year.

The broader question is what can be done.

Board chairman Bob Nickle suggested trying to rework the terms of a $700,000 city loan that helped construct two corporate hangers. Dipping into the airport’s roughly $1 million cash balance to pay down some of that debt could reduce annual interest payments to the city.

“This would help alleviate a potential cash-flow situation,” Nickle said.

The airport reported more revenue than expenses in each of the past two years, but a $48,622 loss is predicted in the 2011 budget.

Other ideas presented by board members included attempts to increase fuel sales to the military and an effort to get more young aviators involved at the airport, possibly through university or continuing education programs.

A couple of pilots who rent hangar space and came to Thursday’s meeting offered another approach: lowering fuel prices.

“You lower the price of gas, the major cost of general aviation, and the pilots will come with their planes,” Frank Sperandeo told the board.

The price of aviation fuel as of Wednesday at Drake Field was $6.39 per gallon, among the highest within 50 miles, according to James Nicholson, financial coordinator. Jet fuel, at $6.64 per gallon, was the most expensive of eight airports surveyed.

Nicholson and Ray Bordeaux, airport director, said they are unable to stockpile fuel when prices are low like some airports in the area because they go through fuel more quickly and the airport’s tank is smaller than other general aviation airports.

Bordeaux has also questioned whether a slight reduction in fuel prices would really lead to a traffic increase.

Nickle noted Drake Field, because it was a commercial airfield at one time, has steeper maintenance costs than most smaller airports.

Drake Field stopped running commercial flights about the time the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Highfill opened in 1998.

Until finances recover, board member Otto Loewer said, “Just hanging on may be the best we can hope for.”

“If you hang on, you’re around when new opportunities present themselves,” he added.

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