Hangar Space Remains Tight, FBOs Face Challenges in Adding Capacity
With many major business aviation destinations in the U.S. short on hangar space, and hundreds more aircraft entering the market every year, the FBO industry has been hard-pressed to keep up with demand. (AIN online, Dec 4th, 2023) Read the article
FBOs Feel the Labor Pinch
If you look across the entire spectrum of entry-level jobs, pre-Covid there used to be a fairly different differential between the person applying at a [fast-food restaurant] versus a person applying at an FBO (AIN online, October 3rd, 2022) Read the article
More Private Jets Take to the Skies, Creating Gridlock on the Ground
“There have been two great waves in general aviation, and so much wealth was created during Covid that we may be starting to see the beginnings of a third shift,” he said. “The private sector is going absolutely gangbusters building hangars as quickly as possible. (New York Times, March 29th, 2022) Read the NYTimes article
Business Development: The Secret Sauce
In the Business & General Aviation (B&GA) industry, a consumer outcome is anything as simple as choosing an FBO from which to make a fuel purchase, to a multi-million-dollar purchase of a turbojet aircraft amongst competing OEMs. While both are transactions, business development means the relationship need not be transactional. (Airport Business Magazine, May-June 2021) […]
Doing It Right: Public Sector FBOs
While the majority of business and general aviation traffic may be found among the Top 250 airports near major city centers, there are another 2,000 airports or more also offering FBO services, an outsized number of which are operated by an airport sponsor itself- be it a city, county, or municipality. As these public-sector FBOs […]
Contracts 101: A Brief Field Guide for the Uninitiated
In business, the consummation of a relationship between parties is usually, if not always, in the form of a contract. And, while legally binding contracts can be implied simply based on the actions of two parties, in its formal version, a contract takes written form. This notion is almost universally well-understood, regardless of industry. Yet, […]
Airports, FBOs and Lease Negotiations: It’s Complicated
What should airports consider when negotiating with a prospective or renewing FBO tenant? And what should FBOs consider when negotiating with their airport? First, each party must be prepared to compromise and respect the knowledge, experience and limitations of the other. A cool head and an encyclopedic knowledge of regulations doesn’t hurt either. (Airport Business […]
FBOs and OEMs: Strange Bedfellows
Unless providing factory-authorized maintenance for a given OEM, or playing host to an OEM’s event featuring an aircraft static display, there is simply no formal relationship in the industry between FBOs and OEMs. Against that backdrop, how can FBOs effectively handle hundreds of aircraft types when OEMs have no cause to engage with FBOs? Through […]
What’s the difference between an SMS and an SMS?
An organization with a true Safety Management System (SMS) demonstrates that managing risk and assuring a safe working environment are institutionalized into the corporate culture. This requires that the organization evolve beyond just “going through the motions” of assuring basic regulatory compliance to a more robust system of identifying, tracking, interpreting analyzing, and to use […]
Media Relations After an Accident: Are You Ready?
BP’s Deepwater Horizon. United 3411. The Boeing 737MAX. All are examples of situations that escalated -not because of the magnitude of the underlying issue- but because of a ham-handed public relations response. In the aviation business, we have a duty to the travelling public to place safety of life above all else. When the unthinkable […]