Hey CC!!! I was just responding to MH's question. I made no comment on the viability of an FBO in Australia. I think you have done a reasonably good job of that one.
For Mr Hat, if your question was legit, the FBOs in the US often provide fuel, parking facilities, rental/loan cars, hotel bookings, taxi arrangements, snacks, catering contacts, coffee, maintenance, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies, toilet facilities, crew rooms, etc and a sort of airport weather and rough traffic information service to arriving and departing aircraft through a staffed base radio, in addition to their flight operations. The radio airport information particularly is a very nice service if the traffic and customer levels justify the allocation of staff and other resources. Dick and the NAS group are focussing on the niceties of this radio service. And no two ways about it, it is nice if it can be provided. The fuel profits as a percentage make up a significant portion of an FBO's justification for providing the service. Some competing FBOs at airports have been known to send out 'Follow Me' cars to lure taxiing customers away from other bowsers. When the bizjets come in, the red carpets come out - literally.
You can figure out whether FBOs will be populating Australia like rabbits after the implementation of NAS. Capt. [Dis]Custard has expressed his opinion. I don't think he is far off the mark. I think there is also a lot to be said for the US charts and docs supporting operations with FBO servces. I don't know how viable this would be in Oz.
Last edited by Lodown; 14th Aug 2003 at 09:26.