Airport searching for new Fixed-Based Operator

Two topics at the Monday night Huntingburg Airport Board meeting could set the tone for the future of operations at the airport.

The first is the budget for the next fiscal year. Airport Manager Travis McQueen presented the board with a budget that takes into consideration the worst case scenario of having no Fixed-Base Operator (FBO) that provides public airport services for those that need them.

Dubois County Flight Services announced in June that, unless something changes, they could no longer absorb the costs of providing FBO services and would have to scale back their operations to focus only on the profitable parts of their business; contract flight services for a major corporation, aircraft management, aircraft repair, aircraft sales and brokerage operations.

This decision would force the Airport Board to have to either find another FBO by March 2013 or provide those services themselves.  So, the second decision made by the Airport Board was to authorize McQueen to solicit request for proposals from companies that do provide those services. After the meeting McQueen had this to say about the decision:

“Last month one of the board members suggested that we actually reach out to the local FBO’s surrounding the area,” McQueen explained. “Tonight (board member) Bob Duncan suggested that we reach out to some of the national chains as well as part of the process as we go through the exercise to see if there’s interest out there.”

McQueen says this doesn’t mean that their relationship with DCFS is over, this is purely an exploratory exercise.