JaxEX looks to add capacity as business aviation soars 

JaxEX looks to add capacity as business aviation soars (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Business aviation at Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport surged in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, hitting a peak of more than 12,000 business flight operations in 2021, according to FAA statistics.

This year, according to the Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s Rolf Riechmann, will be another unprecedented year for flight operations at JaxEX as well as at Herlong Recreational Airport. Those two airports handle most of the area’s general aviation flights, which includes business aviation, flight training and recreation flying.

We sat down with Riechmann, who oversees both airports, to talk about what’s next for the facilities.

You mentioned this year is a record breaking year, or is projected to be. What does that look like and how do you continue to plan for future endeavors?

Well, right now we’re working with our planning and engineering department, looking at different surveys to increase the capacity at the airport without building another runway. So, that’s what we’re doing right now, we’re in the middle of that. We should be getting results probably six months from now, and we’ll go from there.

How does today really compare to pre-pandemic levels or tenant rates here? What did JaxEX look like during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

So, 2019, which is the year we go back to for pre-Covid, we had approximately 158,000 flight operations at JaxEX. A flight operation is one take off or one landing.

During Covid and 2020, we increased from 158,000 to 162,000 operations. And then coming out of Covid in 2021, we increased to 172,000 operations.

Going into 2022, it looks like we’re going to be probably 176,000 or so operations, so, general aviation has grown during Covid and it’s coming out on the backside of Covid even stronger than prior to Covid.

What kind of business or tenant particularly stood out to you post-pandemic? Has one been an outlier or stood out from other aspects of JaxEX?

Well, the flight schools have continued to grow and that’s important. I think anybody that turns on the TV or read the newspaper understands that there’s a pilot shortage, not only in the U.S. but in the world. The tenants out here, the flight schools out here, they’re working to fill those backlogs of vacancies in the pilot world of the commercial ranks. So, I mean, we’re an important incubator for trying to solve problems of a global issue.

So what does the future of aviation look like, with the work of JaxEX in mind?

For general aviation in particular, we’re going to keep growing and growing and growing. There’s no indicator of slowdown.

I think people love to fly. And I think Covid, if anything, taught people that maybe they can’t fly on Southwest or Delta, but they can certainly get in their own airplane or get in their buddy’s airplane and they can fly around, and that’s what we’re all about.

Has that been the driving force of why you’ve seen such an uptick in numbers out here? Just people deciding to do it on their own rather than fly commercially?

No question about it. So, Up, one of the big charters, and NetJets actually stopped taking memberships, probably a year ago just because they were so full. And it’s a freedom, you know, to fly on a private jet. It’s an expensive freedom, but it’s a lot easier to get from point A to point B on a private jet than it is on a commercial jet.

Speaking of an expensive freedom, talk a little bit about gas prices. We’re all seeing the impact gas prices have on the world of travel and transportation; what’s the effect here?

So, 100-low-lead is about $9 a gallon, which is the most I’ve ever seen it at a small airport where a lot of tenants are maybe retired [such as Herlong]. They’re going to be a lot more sensitive to the price of gas as opposed to an airport like JaxEx, where it’s really a working airport with flight training, charter aircraft — people are going to absorb that cost because that’s the price of business.