Ugh. What a topic. This should be as easy as putting your name on a hangar list and wait till one becomes open..and when one does, provide your NNumber and insurance and call it a day.
I’ve lived in Southern California , NorCal, chicago, Boston...etc.
I’ve had hangars at places like Camarillo and Oxnard. Camarillo is “great enough” - Santa Paula like - they promote general aviation, refuse to allow commercial subleasing, they listen to the pilot community...there are always issues, but...places like that are minimal by comparison.
Then cities or counties get lazy or someone’s palm gets greased, and now you have an FBO or business with a long term lease “managing” tie downs and hangars. The truth is that there is no reduction in staffing from before to after as a general rule. I’ve read way too many proposals from “management companies” touting a reduction in liability, headcount, promotion of the airport/marketing, and improving rents. End result? Car washing and detailing businesses move in, things that have nothing to do with aviation, furniture building, wealthy classic car resellers that don’t own airplanes, every imaginable non aviation person looking for a commercial, non flying business moves in, cost for pilots goes up, availability goes down. Look at El Monte or other similar things in Los Angeles County. American Airports employees certainly and frequently complain they don’t get a state pension, and Joe Pilot gets substandard services at a higher cost while the “management company” effectively privatizes a public asset.
“Airport management firms” should be fought or boycotted at all costs in my opinion. They only benefit the company and not the county or city pilots/residents.
This becomes infinitely more egregious at dilapidated communities like Hawthorne. The retired seniors went door to door to keep the airport open; our group did, but through some manipulations by a couple of individuals, one who got his wife working at the city, and long term leases and fuel concessions become exclusive, before the ENTIRE airport closest to downtown LA is rented for a paltry $475k a year. The gentlemen that kept it open? Evicted from their hangars, forced to pay triple rent, and the AOPA community rep is financially in on the action, and several shell companies control the airline at the airport, tiedowns and hangars, the charter business, pretty much all. Prices have skyrocketed, and where once there was a community of 40-50 avid GA fliers have now made way for three hangars: Harrison Ford, Elon Musk, and a helicopter startup. Was there a single headcount saved at Hawthorne? No, not on your life. Levi, Pat Kerry, Chris at Security all benefit at great expense to the local airport community, touting their “investment” in the airport or showcasing how rents are appropriate for the area. Hogwash. Their investment is necessary for them to simply attract greater sums of money from fewer people while screwing GA as a whole.
Santa Monica’s demise was public but not really. Snapchat thought it would be *awesome* to get some really cool aviation office space, so they invested in quite a bit of lobbying to get the airport shirt down...all those “fuel particles” and all. We all know what happened. What few know is the end result was long term leases for Snapchat at the airport pushing out aviation businesses effectively resulting in the eventual closing of the airport. Worse, they had a downturn and couldn’t honor their lease obligations. Disgusting.
Airports should thrive as a community. Hangar construction, noise abatement, pilot services, community outreach should all be part of a healthy aviation community. John Wayne and many other places where the City or County gets lazy and outsources “management” of the airport always results in slower hangar construction, far higher costs, and often “airport managers” who create far more nuisance for the pilot and renter /owner than anything else.
I guess I have some passionate feelings about this. Ok
