AUBURN — Just over one year ago, the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport was a financial and organizational mess facing a bleak future and nearly $1 million in debt.

“We’re at the opposite end of the spectrum,” Jim Platz said Thursday morning as he refueled his twin engine Cessna after a flight from Boston. “We got everything going, replaced people, all the kinds of things we talked about. And now we’re on a good track.” Platz was referring to the financial, customer relations and safety issues he discussed with the Sun Journal last year.

Platz and airport board member and pilot Marc Blais were among the people who spoke out about the airport’s downward spiral because they’ve always said they want a functional airport that serves the customer base and is self-sustaining.

Blais fought the previous board and administration so hard, they tried to have him removed. He fought against selling land to Procter & Gamble Tambrands plant for a fraction of what it was worth and prevailed. It was just one of the many issues that have since been corrected.

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS

Fuel sales are an important source of revenue for smaller, general aviation airports like the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport. They are also a gauge of where an airport is heading, according to industry experts. But fuel sales are not the only source of revenue and there have been significant moves in the last 18 months to seek out other revenue streams.

Last year the Sun Journal reported fuel sales were down by 25% over previous years, not including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, fuel sales reported to the airport board in July paint a very different picture.

The airport sells two types of aviation fuel: Jet A fuel and avgas, or aviation gasoline.

Avgas sales for fiscal year 2024 showed an increase of 47% over FY2023 at 33,887 gallons and reached a high not seen since 2018.

Jet fuel sales for FY2024 showed a 30% increase over FY2023, with the biggest increase in the contract sales category, reaching the highest amount in the last 10 years at 80% of jet fuel sales. Contract sales are pre-negotiated prices pilots and aviation companies work out with suppliers for discounted prices nationwide. Cash and credit cards are the other methods of payment the airport accepts.

Airport operations, usually measured in takeoffs and landings, are up by roughly double over last year. Airport Director Jonathan LaBonte said there are a number of reasons for the increase, with a lot of it attributable to Chickadee Aviation — the flight school that relocated to Auburn in January.

“A lot of those operations are students flying with the flight school,” LaBonte said Thursday. “If you’re going to have an airport long-term you need to have people who can fix airplanes and people learning how to fly them.”

Another significant contributor to increased traffic and fuel sales lies in a humanitarian service known as PALS — Patient Airlift Services — a nonprofit organization that arranges free flights for medical patients requiring medical diagnosis, treatment or follow-up who cannot afford or are unable to fly commercially.

PALS and Angel Flight pilots use the Auburn airport as a sort of relay stop on their way to and from medical facilities in larger cities and more rural areas of Maine. A PALS exchange was just one of the many flights at the airport Thursday morning.

Another change at the airport is the move to self-serve fuel for general aviation pilots — something that’s been in the works for some five years. On Aug. 7, contractors Simard & Sons, The Cote Corporation and Lakes Region Environmental relocated a 26,000-pound avgas tank adjacent to the terminal, making it more convenient for pilots. LaBonte said he hopes to have the self-serve station fully operational within a few weeks.

“That’s going to make a big difference,” Platz said. “It’s going to change the whole refueling setup and it’s going to make it even better.” Pilot Art Faulk, a retiree who spends summers at his house in Naples, was fueling up Thursday morning for a flight to Bar Harbor with his friend and co-pilot. He said he will absolutely use the self-serve pump, explaining it opens up the airport to pilots who need to fly outside of the airport’s business hours and can now fuel up whenever they want, a first for the airport.

Blais, the airport board member and pilot, has been advocating for the self-serve pump since he first became involved at the airport years ago, and said he felt emotional Thursday as he talked about the change. “Personally, it’s a great accomplishment.”

LaBonte agrees there’s a lot of excitement around what to some people would seem like an insignificant change and adds the move to a self-serve avgas pump will no doubt positively affect future fuel sales, opening up access to the airport 24-hours a day.

“Without a doubt,” LaBonte said, “competitively priced fuel, (with) people being able to come in or leave when their schedules dictate versus when ours do.”

NEW PROJECTS ON THE HORIZON

The airport’s largest hangar, abandoned by Elite Airways in summer 2022, remains available for lease or sale but has a practical, although temporary use, housing tenants based in Auburn who occupied a hangar on the east ramp or apron of the airport.

Chickadee Aviation and Sunbird Aviation, who signed five-year leases at the beginning of this year, now occupy the “white hangar.”

“But when the flight school came and Sunbird Aviation, we offered Hangar No. 5 to them,” LaBonte explained, “we didn’t want to lose tenants that are based here.” Additional planes are also using the larger hangar, and it brings in some extra revenue.

New hangars are moving forward, one with private development money and the other with government funds attached to a Federal Aviation Administration earmark spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District. The first to be built will be a 6,400-square-foot hangar that will get fast-tracked for next year. The second project, 10 smaller T-hangars, which are built in a row but have separate spaces, will take a few years to materialize.

“Growing the number of tenants based here is a very high priority,” LaBonte emphasized. “Having operators — Dirigo, Skyward Aviation … Sunbird, the flight school, people are going to want to be based around those services.”

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

There are now three maintenance operations based at the airport and LaBonte says he would like to encourage younger aged students to get interested in aviation and wants to work with Lewiston Regional Technical Center and the high schools to start an aviation program.

While the airport is not fully self-sufficient, it’s on track to become so in the near future. A lot of the changes have been spearheaded by LaBonte, who is the former mayor of Auburn. But Blais offered high praise for LaBonte’s work over the past two years to turn things around, despite his political background.

“He doesn’t just do what you tell him to do,” said Blais. “He does his homework, he learned the process and he listened to pilots,” he added. “Absolutely,” was the response from Blais when asked if the airport was improved under LaBonte’s tenure.

“Marc laid everything out in terms of how everything should be structured — personnel particularly,” offered Platz. “And then Jonathan came in and implemented it. So that’s basically in a nut shell, how this whole thing changed.”

Dirigo Aerospace Solutions is one of the maintenance operations and is owned by Mark and Kate McGhee. “We appreciate our current airport management’s vision for the future and willingness to work with (the) McGhees’ ‘out-of-the-box’ way of thinking,” they offered via email Thursday.

“We have a dynamic aviation community here … busy aviation maintenance shops on the east and west ramps that are pleased to work with each other, a vibrant flight school, a close knit and incredibly generous humanitarian operation and a fantastic, conscientious airport operations crew.”

It’s quite a turn of events and sentiment from a year ago.

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