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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-10-10 MinutesFAYETTEVILLE EXECUTIVE AIRPORT BOARD MINUTES October 10, 2013 MEMBERS PRESENT: Bob Nickle, Josh Mahony, Bill Corley, Mike Gibbs, Rick Bailey, Marty Burggraf MEMBERS ABSENT: Ken Haxel OTHERS PRESENT: Rick McKinney -tenant; Jeffry Gates -Arkansas A&M Museum, Wayne Jones-MCE; Joel Walsh -NWA Times; Warren Jones -Arkansas A&M Museum; James Nicholson -Financial Coordinator; Lauren Treat -Administrative Assistant; Mike Bowman -Tower; Craig Young -Tenant ITEM #1: Welcome. Chairman Nickle. ITEM #2: Approval of the Airport Board Minutes of the October 10, 2013 meeting. Gibbs pointed out that a sentence in the minutes should be changed from "a Board Members" to `Board Members". A motion to approve the minutes with the proposed change was made by Josh Mahony, and seconded by Bill Corley. The motion carried. ITEM #3: Receiving of Reports. A. Director Boudreaux, Aviation Director. Boudreaux said the contract tower program is good through the month of October. The Sequester Law adds another percentage cut for FY2014, so the money available for contract tower program may be reduced. He said no one knows what will happen yet. Regarding the Million Air DLA contract transfer, Boudreaux said the airport still has not received any money from DFAS or Million Air. Nicholson is in contact with a representative at MA and he was informed that a check should be in the mail. Gibbs commented that this will be an auditing nightmare. Bailey commended Nicholson for putting up with this accounting mess. Boudreaux said the government shut down could potentially affect things, as well — the airport administration is just waiting to see what will happen. Boudreaux reported this has been a good quarter for airport activity. He said during the A&M game weekend, the FBO sold every drop of AvGas & Jet Fuel. He said luckily the FBO did not have to turn anyone down for fuel, though it came close. Boudreaux said Loomacres responded to Richard Middleton's answers regarding our Wildlife Hazard Assessment inspection which were deemed unsatisfactory. The correct answers should be to the FAA soon. Boudreaux noted the great success of Bikes, Blues, and Barbeque — the Museum made over $12,000 (1/3 of the overall profit.) The Commemorative Air Force took home $24,000. The British Acrobatic Team trained at Drake Field this month. They were invited by the Walton family to practice at Bentonville, but they received too many complaints, so they went to Fayetteville. Boudreaux said the team really enjoyed practicing at Drake Field. Boudreaux quickly discussed the U of A charter and details regarding the upcoming home football game. He briefly reported on the apron rehab project. Boudreaux said he is in touch with Paul Burns and he is currently amassing entitlement funds to get the apron repaired/rebuilt in the 2015 AIP funding cycle. There are other projects listed on Drake Field's 5 Year Plan such as widening taxiways, straightening out Bravo on the end, a runway extension project, etc. Boudreaux said that Morgan Lomax (CSR) put in her resignation, but she agreed to stay through the last home game day. He continued to briefly discuss a few other employee changes. He mentioned that everyone should consider getting an AvFuel credit card. That saves the airport administration office from having to pay the credit card fee, as well as saving cardholders 10 cents a gallon. B. Financial Coordinator James Nicholson, Budget Report. September was a good month. The football games made a big difference with 40,000 gallons of fuel sold in the last month. Operations are slightly ahead. Nicholson said he predicts we might end up just above 36,000 in operations. Overall, fuel sales are slightly behind but we are pretty close (he predicts 365,000 gallons by end of year.) Nicholson said we aren't quite meeting our target margins but we did a little better than last month. This is in part because retail sales, military sales, contract fuel sales, etc. are all calculated slightly differently. The FBO sold so much contract fuel in September which made a significant difference in the calculations. Nicholson said our fuel price is only a few cents higher than other FBO's prices. Gibbs asked about market adjustments. Boudreaux said the airport administration previously tried to do that but the other FBO's in the area are determined to have lower prices than us. So, no matter what we set our price at, they set it a little bit lower. Nickle pointed out that the City of Springdale approved a million dollar renovation to their airport. Boudreaux said the renovation at Drake Field came from the airport's own savings account. Nickle said to remember that unlike Drake Field, some airports have subsidies from the City. Boudreaux said it is good thing that we are self- sufficient when applying for grants, especially from the State Aeronautics Commission. Discussion of pricing followed. Nickle said the two lowest fuel prices on the list of airports are not really in our ballpark — they are a completely different kind of operation. Corley said even though we are a different kind of operation, they are still our competitors. Bailey, Mahony, and Corley agreed that Drake Field's tenants do fill up their tanks at those other airports and bring it back. Corley said a regression analysis on T Hangar rentals would be beneficial. Gibbs said we need to find items that we could put together a list and monitor such as economic situation, T Hangar prices, etc. anything that affects fuel prices. Nicholson said the cash balance is a little below the 500K mark due to the hangar project. He pointed out that if we take out our startup costs and compare our expenses to revenues, we are about a thousand dollars ahead, so we are actually making it okay. Gibbs requested that Huntsville is added to the fuel pricing sheet. Gibbs asked if McKinney had any ideas to help with our fuel pricing. McKinney said if we stay in the competitive arena for price, more people will fly in here. Drake Field already has the tower for safety so if we had the low fuel prices too, we would see more traffic. McKinney agreed that it would be a good idea to do the regression analysis. Boudreaux said the Board should hold a strategic planning meeting before he and Nickle leave their positions. C. Administrative Assistant, Lauren Treat, T -Hangar Report. Reported all hangars are full with four rented for storage. D. Wayne Jones, McClelland Engineers, Construction Report. Wayne said the contractor has not been on site for the last few days because the team is waiting on the door frames. The architect was on vacation the last week, too. The door frames are welded door frames so they must all be in before the drywall can go up. Wayne said there are several other submittals they are waiting on, as well. E. Museum Executive Director Warren Jones, Museum Report. Dave Powell from Summit Aviation visited the Museum and paid to get the ErCoupe running. He flew it up to Bentonville for their "house warming" event last Saturday. Warren hoped to take the Stinson as well, but the weather was unfavorable. Warren said Patrick Carter (NFlight Technology) is currently in Connecticut doing water survival training. Next year, he will participate in a world-wide flight sponsored by Pilatus and the Amelia Earhart foundation. Carter will fly with Amelia Earhart's granddaughter. Air Traffic Controllers were at the Museum on Monday night for a fundraiser called "Vector for the Cure." Warren said he is still booking events at the museum and there are a few weddings coming up. Warren said nearly 3,000 people visited the Museum during the three days of BB&BBQ, which is a third of the annual visitor count. The guys from the Commemorative Air Force verbally committed to returning next year. Warren said he hopes the event name will be officially changed to "Bikes, Blues, Barbeque & Bombers." Nicholson added that just before the event, he posted a picture on the BB&BBQ Facebook page. They shared the photo, which resulted in many new shares as well as over 90 new likes to the Museum's Facebook page. F. Marketing Committee Chairman Bill Corley, Marketing Report. Corley said he put together a list of things that he think are issues to get us to a place to where we can do some more tactical/results driven marketing. He said the marketing committee needs to meet soon; everyone who is interested may attend. Lindsley Smith should also attend, if possible. Treat will coordinate the marketing meeting along with the strategic planning meeting. ITEM #4: Old Business. A. T Hangar Rent Increase Mahony said most of the feedback he received regarding a rent increase has been negative. Discussion followed about when the Board typically considers raising the rent. Nickle said the Board has not committed to any set number of years to have the discussion. However, he pointed out that if the Board waits too long, the rate that it will need to be raised to will feel significantly more drastic. If the Board raises the rent every couple of years, it will feel like a smaller change. Nickle said he believes the Board should consider some kind of rent increase in order to try to offset the increase of costs facing the airport. Gibbs asked if it concerns anyone that Springdale has lower hangar prices. Nickle said there aren't any hangars available at Springdale so that is a nonissue. Boudreaux said actually, one of our new tenants chose to rent one of our hangars over an available hangar at Springdale. Gibbs said even a small rent increase would boost our budget quite a bit. However, he said if he had to decide today, he would suggest the rates stay the same this year and raise them next year. Boudreaux said no one will leave if we raise the rent ten dollars. McKinney agreed with Boudreaux but added that if the rent is raised by thirty dollars, people will start shop around. McKinney said as an aircraft owner, his expenses have gone up as well. Boudreaux recommended a fifteen dollar increase across the board to all hangars. The smaller storage hangars would go up by half of whatever the other hangars are raised by. Brief discussion of a two tier pricing system followed. Bailey said he would rather have storage tenants paying rent for use of that space than have the hangar sit empty. Boudreaux agreed, but emphasized that the overall goal is to not have any aircraft hangars used for storage. ITEM #5: New Business. Boudreaux said Board positions are approaching term expirations. Mahony has filled his partial term and said he would like to run again. Nickle is now ineligible to run again. Boudreaux said the Board needs to start talking to people. The Board needs to find a businessman to fill Nickle's spot. Applications are due soon. Nicholson said someone with real estate background would be a plus. ITEM #6: Other Business. A. Items from the Public. Craig Young (tenant) said he would like to concur with everything that Rick .McKinney said regarding the hangar rent increase. Young said he supported the last rent increase and he understands that the price of things go up. He said what may not seem like a large. amount of money to the Board may feel like a lot to the tenants who are here and already paying higher fuel prices. Young agreed it is time for an increase, but the tenants do not want to pay any more than necessary. Young said to please remember that airplane owners/operator's costs have gone up, as well. B. Items from the Airport Board. None.