Five months after the
company suddenly pulled its operations out of the southern Kenai
Peninsula, Grant Aviation is facing a lawsuit from the City of Homer.
Grant owes the city about $20,000 in unpaid bills.
Grant Aviation
had only been operating out of Homer for about three years when they
abruptly left in February. Homer City Manager Walt Wrede says the city
was very surprised to hear the news.
“We thought that things were
going well for them here,” he said. “We found out about them leaving
through the newspaper. They didn’t contact us ahead of time to let us
know.”
Grant also pulled out of Valdez in February, under similar circumstances.
Wrede
says the company owes the City of Homer about $20,000 in back rent for
its spot at the Homer Airport. He says the company was four or five
months behind on rent when it pulled out of town.
Wrede says that
after several unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with officials from
Grant Aviation, the city is now preparing a lawsuit against them to
reclaim the money.
“They’ve been unresponsive so they’re leaving us with little choice,” he said.
Representatives
from Grant Aviation did not respond to requests for comment for this
story. The company has been operating in Alaska since 1971. According to
its website, Grant currently owns a fleet of 20 small aircraft,
operating in several Alaskan communities, including Anchorage, Kenai,
Bethel, Dillingham and Dutch Harbor.
Wrede says the City of Homer
has yet to file its lawsuit and he’s still holding out hope that it
won’t come to that. He says the absence of Grant Aviation, combined with
the departure of two of the airport’s three car rental agencies, has
left a hole on the finances for the airport terminal.
Homer is
not the only city that has had to take Grant to court over unpaid bills.
In February, the City of Kenai secured a judgment in District Court for
more than $56,000 in terminal lease payments and landing fees owed by
Grant. Scott Bloom is the City Attorney for Kenai. He says that since
that that judgment, Grant has been making installment payments on the
money owed but they are still behind.
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