Branching Out
Aircraft sales company moves into the FBO business and looks to turn around an Indianapolis reliever
By John F. Infanger, Editorial Director
October 2000
MT. COMFORT, IN — Pat Robinson, 36, has worked successfully in flight training and later aircraft sales around the Indianapolis area since college. In 1999, he and wife Danielle purchased Angel Air, a fixed base operator at the Mt. Comfort Airport reliever east of the city. With a new 20-year lease negotiated, they’re positioning to change the fortunes of this sleepy airfield.
Explains Pat Robinson, "Because we
have been on a lot of airports, we’ve had the opportunity to learn
the FBO business, but as an aircraft sales company our goal was to get
there, do our buying or selling, and leave.
"When we walked into the FBO business
here we were fairly ill-equiped to know what department needed what help.
This FBO is virtually 20 years old now; there have been two different
operators here. One was a chain, Aero Services; they built this building
with the idea that every corporate airplane was going to move out here
once it was built. Aero Services ran it until about 1989.
"We knew that we couldn’t rely
on aircraft sales for our retirement. The aircraft sales business is one
of the most profitable pieces of a GA airport, but it’s not an asset-building
business. I don’t have a business I can sell. So we started looking
pretty hard to develop some kind of asset-based structure."
Today, Indy Aero Services, Inc., is the
full-service FBO, with some 30 employees, full and part time, and Indy
Aero, Inc., is the Robinsons’ ongoing aircraft sales firm. The airport
encompasses some 2,000 acres, with primary tenant Indy Aero occupying
eight acres, four to six of which are developable under the current leasehold.
An AWOS was recently installed and was expected to be commissioned in
early fall.
The FBO is currently in the final stages
of getting its Part 135 charter certificate. A partnership was created
with two A&P technicians — Mike Baughman and George Miller —
who were striking out on their own at the same time. Baughman and Miller
brought with them piston, turbine, and rotary experience. Indy Aero is
a certified service center for Enstrom.
Explains Robinson, "We offered to let
them run our shop in partnership with us, so they have a vested interest
in helping build this business. That was probably the smartest thing we’ve
done. We brought in two guys that had considerable experience right on
up through turbine aircraft who were able to walk into the shop and treat
it as their own. A year later, the shop’s doing well. We’re
up to six mechanics."
CHANGING CLIENTELE
Mt. Comfort Airport is owned and operated
by the Indianapolis Airport Authority, which oversees International Airport,
and GA airports Eagle Creek, Metropolitan, Mt. Comfort, and Speedway,
which is slated to be replaced with a new reliever west of downtown at
Hendricks County.
"It’s an interesting scenario
in Indianapolis now because of the three FBOs in town at the reliever
airports — Eagle Creek, Metro, and Mt. Comfort — we’ve
all worked together in some capacity," says Robinson.
The airport here, built in 1979, features
crosswind runways of 5,500 and 3,900 feet and 110 t-hangars which the
authority operates. In all there are some 140 based aircraft, almost totally
piston.
"With all due respect to the other
operators," says Robinson, "the reliever airports in Indianapolis,
historically, haven’t sought out private owners or corporations to
build their hangars. They tend to (let them) go to the airport authority.
"We have a good airport authority;
they have been very supportive of us. But there is a lot of red tape to
get a corporate hangar built wherever you build it, and I think we as
an FBO have to work on developing a package so that we can sell space
to corporate aviation — because we are a standing FBO. We understand
the hurdles of getting through negotiations. I think if we take a role
as an FBO to help people build their own private hangars, we’re going
to see more come out here.
"Indianaapolis in the past 20 years
has grown north, south, and west — not east. But there are a lot
of things starting to happen out here, and it is industry. It is coming
this way. So, I think we’re in the right spot for future growth."
BELIEVING IN FULL SERVICE
Robinson says he is fully committed to developing
a full-service general aviation facility — not just a property manager
and fuel reseller.
"An FBO means providing all of the
required services to the general aviation community, and I think those
services are maintenance, rental and flight training, fuel, charter, storage,
and management. An FBO, to serve its customers, has to provide maintenance.
If you want to develop future clientele, you have to provide flight training
and rental. Everybody wants the fuel business -— that’s easy.
"I’m still new at this; but I
believe we’re here to provide a service, and I don’t believe
in the fractionalization of it.
"I believe that long-term, a reasonably
sized FBO on a nice airport like this, we should be able to provide good
flight training and good, well-maintaned airplanes. I need to find the
employees to make it happen, but I know I can make it happen. I think
the flight school is so complementary -— the flight school buys maintenance
from you, it buys fuel from you, it has extra pilots around that the sales
department can use. It’s not real profitable, but I think a flight
school’s really important."
He agrees that fuel sales, too, are vital
to the long-term viability of the FBO. In its first year, Indy Aero has
pumped a low of 10,000 gallons a month to a high of 21,000 gallons. "Our
fuel sales are slowly going up," says Robinson. "We have invested
in refuelers and personnel — more than can be justified by the numbers,
plus a new Lektro tug."
An unexpected profit center has arisen with
incoming 135 freight operators — Convairs, Beech 18s, and Learjets.
"They don’t want to deal with
Indianapolis International’s traffic and congestion. It’s helped
us sell another 3,000 to 4,000 gallons a month, and for the fuel business
that can be the difference to profitability," says Robinson.
To develop the freight business, which primarily
links just-in-time inventory to automobile manufacturers, Robinson hired
Jim Sparks, a non-aviation sales management veteran. Sparks has solicited
business from some 400 operators within a 700-mile radius of Indianapolis
and is exploring the potential of available facilities at International
Airport.
He has overseen the purchase of two forklifts,
a van, and a freight truck to accommodate the aircraft, and expects to
add to the company’s ground fleet by year’s end.
