By Andy Sevilla
Pilots from across the country, Canada and Mexico took advantage of a research experiment offering $1 per gallon of aviation gas in San Marcos during the month of October, though the project’s “overwhelming” success cut the life of the program in half.
The San Marcos Airport, in an effort to increase air traffic, lowered its gas prices to one dollar a gallon. The overwhelming response to the deal forced the airport to end the special two weeks early. (Courtesy photo) |
The general aviation research experiment born to identify the contributing factors that affect how often pilots take to the sky attracted thousands of flyers to the San Marcos Municipal Airport, quickly exceeding the expectations of the project managers.
Redbird Skyport, a fixed-based operator and terminal at the San Marcos Municipal Airport which is also a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licensed flight school, initiated the month-long program in hopes of finding answers to how fuel prices influence aviation activity. The company, however, had to cut the program short as the “overwhelming response met goals three weeks ahead of schedule,” according to a company statement.
“We regret having to make any changes to the plan,” Skyport spokesman Jeff Van West said in the statement. “But our goal was both data collection and stirring an infusion of activity in the GA (general aviation) community. On both those counts, we’ve already succeeded several times over even our boldest projections.”
Skyport, which normally sells about 4,000 gallons of aviation fuel per month at about $6 per gallon, expected to sell 40,000 gallons of fuel at the $1 price during the month-long program. The company, however, reached its target within the first six days from the rollout, according to Skyport General Manager John Koenreich.
“If you own an airplane and you have the ability to buy fuel for a dollar a gallon, and you don’t go flying, then it’s time to sell your airplane. If that doesn’t get you in the air, nothing will,” Koenreich said in a telephone interview Monday.
Skyport teamed up with several aviation industry players, as well as with San Marcos and other local-area businesses to help defray the cost of the 40,000 gallons of fuel being offered at the discounted price. By doing so, Koenreich said his company was able to facilitate the experiment and the other partners, too, were able to gather data relevant to them.
The discounted fuel offer was open to any piston aircraft that could fly in and fly out of the airport, so long as the pilot participated in the study about how flying choices were made. Skyport approached pilots with questions regarding flight patterns, destinations, demographics, etc., and partner companies conducted forums of their own seeking answers and opinions on the direction of their products and the aviation industry, according to the statement.
“We thought that we would get a large amount of the flying general aviation community from a 500-mile radius come in and take advantage of this. What we found out was we had people from Canada, Mexico, east coast, west coast,” Koenreich said. “This was a great way for them to say, ‘hey all this flying that I’ve been wanting to do, I wanted to get an extra rating, so this is a great time to do it, because now at a dollar a gallon it’s actually cheaper to fly an airplane than to drive a car.”
Because of the high response, Koenreich said the program was cut short by two weeks, and ended Oct. 15.
“To see how busy the (San Marcos) airport became in the first two weeks of October was just absolutely phenomenal, just unbelievable,” Koenreich said. “… The air space was so busy (Austin-Bergstrom International Airport) actually dedicated a controller to the San Marcos sector and gave us our own separate frequencies so they can work it and maintain the safety standards that needed to be maintained.”
“By comparison, the airport in San Marcos became as busy as the busiest general aviation airport in the United States currently, which is Van Nuys airport in the LAX basin, in the Los Angeles basin,” he said.
Koenreich said his office will provide a report of their findings in the coming months, and he expects several aviation industry companies will, too, begin disseminating their results through articles and published works.
