Good question. With me the following factors with some exclusions is how I choose a FBO.
1. Fuel cost (however if the FBO is dirty, has poor service or in a hard to locate position on the airport [for paxs to find] then cheapest ain’t bestest, if you get my drift.)
2. Modern nice lobbies and flight crew lounges with on site dining facilities or provides crew cars to nearby restaurants.
3. FBO should provide good customer relation personnel for rental cars, hotel rooms, catering, special passenger requests, etc.
4. FBOs for technical stops
a. Fuel Cost
b. Proven fast turn time.
c. Easy in/out location on airport.
d. Cooperative ATC. (Although this falls more into which airport one picks for a technical stop there are some FBOs that work with ATC for good service.)
The only chain of FBOs that I try my best to avoid is ‘Signature Flight Support’. In the U.S. ‘Signature’ is the only FBO at nearly every one of their locations and they act like it.
I am going to relate one humorous story about the ‘Signature FSO’ at KDTW (Detroit Metro). A few years ago one of the schedules I flew was KOKC-KHUF-KDTW-KORD-KRST-KOKC. As a general rule we did not fuel at KDTW because of the fuel cost. However on this day the weather was down at ORD and I decided to add an extra 15,000lbs. The FE called ‘Signature’ for a fuel truck when we were 15 minutes out.
In those days we parked on a taxiway in front of the FBO and we could see the FBO and their ramp. As we sat there waiting for the fuel truck we could see that the ramp was empty. After about 10 minutes and no fuel truck the FE decided to walk over to the FBO and see why we couldn’t get a fuel truck.
He walked into the office and saw one guy behind the counter talking on the phone and three other guys sitting in a backroom drinking coffee and reading newspapers. Well, as he was standing there trying in vain to attract some one’s attention he noticed a phone next to the counter with a sign that said something to effect that if you needed help or offer suggestions for better service please pick up the receiver and you will connected directly to ‘Signature’ headquarters.
My FE picks up the receiver and sure enough some guy answered stating that that he the vice-president of customer relations. My FE tell the guy that he is curious as why he has been waiting for 45 minutes for a fuel truck when obviously nothing is going on.
Now you have got to remember while the FE is talking on the phone these 4 guys are still sitting listening to the phone call. This vice-president tells the FE to hang up and that he take care of the situation. Right after the FE hangs up the phone behind the counter ring and the FE can hear some screaming over the phone at the guy behind the counter. The counter guy drops the phone and starts yelling at the three guys in the back room the get the hell off their butts and fuel that 72.
And so we finally got fueled.