In November/December 1986, the first issue of FBO magazine arrived on the desks of FBO leaders across the nation. Prominently featured on the cover was Howard Gregory of Des Moines Flying Service. Gregory passed away in 2012 at the age of 94, but the magazine that once featured him on its cover lives on.
The FBO community embraced the publication from the start. And while over the years, we’ve changed the name to Airport Business, redesigned the magazine, adjusted the size and added departments, the aviation community still looks to the publication for timely coverage of airports and FBOs and the issues that concern them. Thirty years later, our mission remains the same: To examine how airports and FBOs are doing what they do, what’s working and what’s not, and what needs to happen for these aviation sectors to remain successful and profitable.
As Airport Business starts its anniversary year, we decided it might be approrpiate to republish the Publisher’s Column describing the goals of FBO at its launch. As you read the words of then-publisher Mike Murrell you’ll discover the mission of yesteryear rings true today.
FBO magazine got an inauspicious start on a cocktail napkin and its ideas and goals have stood the test of time. Research told us then that this was the right publication, at the right time, focused on the right audience. And, that’s still true today!
The question is not when, but where
By Mike Murrell, Publisher, FBO
How long have we been waiting for the turnaround in general aviation? Four years? Five? Longer? It’s been “just around the corner” for a long time. And it remains so. It is as elusive as a substantive agreement with the Soviets to cap the arms race.
While we’ve been waiting, a lot of businesses have fallen by the wayside. Some by choice, some otherwise. That’s understandable when one considers the current average pretax profits of FBOs, put by one industry source at 1.8 percent of sales with an average return on assets of only 4 percent.
There’s no margin for error. In fact, there’s no margin for much of anything with that kind of profit potential.
Yet there are people profiting in this environment, some handsomely. A few are doing as well or better than they did back in the glory years of the late ‘70s,
In the course of studying the feasibility of bringing a retailer-oriented publication into this market, we came across a number of success stories. We were fascinated by them because they are classic studies of entrepreneurial survivors in a mature market experiencing a complex, prolonged downturn. But we weren’t surprised. There are parallels in several of the other industry segments in which we publish retailer periodicals.
The retail survivors in general aviation are no different than those in any other industry in trasition. They are, first of all, working harder and smarter than ever before. They are managing their businesses, studying financials for creative ways to deploy their assets and resources. They are controlling costs.
In larger operations, where several tiers of management may exist, managers are being held more accountable than in better times. In a number of these companies, middle management ranks are thinning as CEOs roll up their sleeves and get back to the basics of selling and running the business.
The survivors are aggressively seeking new opportunities. And, while they may tap into outside sources for counsel, they know that the solutions must come from within themselves and their companies. Hard decisions are being made; there is no waiting for legislative or regulatory relief because the crises are here and now.
Perhaps most important, the survivors consistently show a renewed emphasis on their most important asset: their customers. These operators have learned not only how to get new customers but how to keep them, and that an absolute commitment to customer satisfaction drops straight to the bottom line. Not only will satisfied customers keep coming back to buy, but they will bring their friends. And satisfied customers will pay prices profitable to the retailer for good service because price is an issue only in the absence of value.
Our editorial platform is to profile those individuals and companies that are doing things right … both large and small. We will examine how they are doing it, what has worked and what hasn’t, and focus their styles, systems, controls, planning and visions. A wealth of knowledge resides within these success stories and can be profitable to others.
We are not teachers. We are students, not knowing when or to what degree there will be a recovery in this industry. We do, however, have a pretty strong sense of where the turnaround will take place: at the retail level. It won’t be in Wichita, Vero Beach or Kerrville. It won’t be with the staffs of the Washington-based trade associations.
Only general aviation retailers can keep the diminishing numbers of corporate and recreational aircraft and plots in the air. And only retailers can create the user-friendly environment that will spawn the next generation of owners and pilots this industry so desperately needs. Economic centers of influence, such as the airframe manufacturers, can’t do it. In fact, they don’t even exist right now. It can only happen out at the airport, where relationships are nurtured and business is transacted.
That is the premise of FBO. It started on a cocktail napkin and has stood the test of extensive field interviews, focus groups, surveys and market analysis. Research tells us that this is the right publication, at the right time, focused on the right audience. You, our readers and advertisers, will now pass judgment on our research.
