Participating in Flight Aware attracts pilots to the airport to buy fuel, Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King said.
A fee of $950 for Flight Aware was on the list of claim items presented to the Board of Aviation Commissioners Tuesday evening.
“That’s just an annual subscription to be a business part of Flight Aware,” King explained. “It promotes our airport on Flight Aware software, which is what pilots use on an iPad as they fly and do their flight planning.”
The big reason he said they want to advertise on Flight Aware is because it shows the airport’s fuel prices.
“We’ve had several pilots fly in the last few months because our fuel prices have been so competitive with the local area. They’ve actually been flying out of the way or specifically to Warsaw just because they want to go somewhere for lunch and they’ve seen (our prices) on Flight Aware. So it definitely does pay back on our annual subscription with that,” King said.
Other than that, he said the claims for March 1 through 31 was a quiet month. Three items on the claim list over $2,000 were $2,022 for NIPSCO; $2,527 for Raynor Door Authority; and $2,137.10 for Warsaw Fiber.
Board President Jay Rigdon asked if the claim for Warsaw Fiber was for the new high-speed Internet.
King said it was, and the $552.63 claim for Centurylink should be the last one for it.
“We’re in the middle of getting all of the old lines cancelled because we are now officially, 100 percent, with VOIT,” King said.
The March claims were unanimously approved by the board.
In his report to the board, engineer Ken Ross said the airport got a “couple of wins finally with the FAA.”
On the issue of moving the power lines, he said the FAA agreed with the concepts the airport is going to study moving forward. The exhibits were sent out to all involved environmental agencies as well as the Michiana Area Council of Government, Kosciusko County Commissioners and city to get their comments on what they think is the best alternative to achieve the runway extension by moving the power lines, Ross said. He also requested information from MACOG on traffic counts and peak hours.
In his printed engineer’s report, Ross indicated that once the comments from all agencies are received, he can begin to finalize the report. Cost estimates are being developed for the options as well as additional impact data being gathered for use in the report.
The other good thing, he reported, was that the FAA accepted the airport’s concepts to shift the Runway 36 threshold about 200 feet, enough to clear the Runway Protection Zone. Now the airport can move forward with the pavement rehabilitation and other projects, he said.
In final business before the board, King reported fuel sales for March were pretty flat from February.
“We were down a couple of companies in fuel but we had a couple of companies really pick up and we were just really pretty solid right across the board. Things are, in my opinion, looking really good. We’re still up from last year, month to month, in fuel sales. Other than that, things have just been really quiet and we’re working on a bunch of old projects and we’re trying to get things ready for the mowing season and updating some mowing equipment. We’re working on getting some things cleaned up. Other than that, just a really quiet month,” King said.
The next Board of Aviation Commissioners meeting is at 5:15 p.m. May 10.
