After discussions Tuesday about lofty future plans for Sterling Municipal Airport, the Sterling City Council was weighed down by one key question: To self-pump or not to self-pump?
Council members unanimously agreed at a work session Tuesday that storing fuel on-site would benefit the airport, but they weighed the pros and cons of constructing self-serve gas pumps for aircraft.
The council has been looking into the possibility of pairing the airport with a fixed-base operator (FBO) – a business that's granted rights to provide services at the airport – or making improvements to make it more competitive in the area.
Opinions split largely between the positive views of Michael Dye, an FBO consultant, and airport manager Pat O'Brien. Dye thinks the self-serve gas pumps would draw more aircraft to the area, while O'Brien says he doesn't think they're necessary.
“We're trying to make products and services available. We're trying to make the airport more attractive to people who aren't here now,” Dye said.
He added that the $11,000 it would cost to add self-serve pumps – added to the roughly $200,000 to $220,000 it would take to install on-site fuel tanks – would work out to about an extra 1.3 cents per gallon of fuel over six to eight years.
“It's not a $50,000 to $100,000 investment,” Dye said. “It's going to be there and it's going to serve you, and it's going to serve the pilots.”
The alternative would be for pilots to call airport staff whenever they fly in after work hours, and some would have the option of refueling their planes on their own during the day. And some pilots on transient flights, Dye said, might be attracted to an airport where they can refuel at 11:30 at night.
Companies interested in an FBO might also become interested if the airport has self-service.
But O'Brien said he and the pilots he talked to wouldn't use the self-service pumps, so they'd go to waste.
“I don't think it'd be beneficial. A fuel farm itself, yes, but pilots don't like to use self-serve,” O'Brien said. “I don't see how it would pay for itself in any time frame. … I think it is money best spent somewhere else.”
Another man at the meeting who claimed he'd been a pilot for 37 years said he'd never used a self-serve pump, either.
O'Brien said if anything, a lot of traffic comes to the airport because of its fuel prices, which are “very competitive, if not much lower” here than in Nebraska or other neighboring areas.
Mayor Heather Brungardt said they could price out fuel used at self-serve pumps and compare the differences in price. Council member Randy Brigham suggested getting figures of prices for self-serve fuel at other airports.
Regardless, the council decided to put on-site fueling and airport improvements on their short list of projects for 2013.
“If we don't, we're going to be talking about this a year from now,” Brigham said.
The $200,000-plus needed for the addition would only cover equipment costs, according to City Manager Joe Kiolbasa, but Dye said there were grants available.
One in particular Dye had heard about would pay 90 percent of the costs, but he said the grant cycle starts in September and applications have to be submitted by October.
“There's not a lot of time if we want to put our name in the hopper,” he said. He later added that having plans for improvements in place might boost the city's chance of receiving a competitive grant.
Story: http://www.journal-advocate.com
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