Group at Ogden-Hinckley Airport organizing, retaining legal counsel to weigh options

[fasteddie]

A group of longtime users of the Ogden-Hinckley Airport say they’re organizing — an effort that aims to improve their lives at the facility and includes retaining official legal representation.
...pilots, hangar owners, business owners and others at the airport have made “valiant efforts to work with Ogden City in an attempt to find a mutually beneficial middle ground” for use of the airport, but have ultimately been unsuccessful.
“Despite decades of industry and aviation experience, not one piece of advice provided to Ogden City by our business/general aviation experts has been heeded or integrated into any airport planning or regulations,” McKenney said in the email.

Link to the article from Ogden's Standard Examiner

I flew out of Ogden-Hinckley airport in Northern Utah long ago. It's a pretty well equipped airport, 8,100 ft primary runway, situated about 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City. While there have been many threads about the decline of GA airports, OGD seems to be running into the opposite problem. Long-term GA tenants of the airport are watching their previously sleepy little facility start to wake up. The last several years have seen the start of twice-weekly airline service (via Allegiant), expansion of several large aviation businesses on the airport property (Borsight, Williams International, Northrop-Grumman), along with expansion of flying training activities and corporate flights.

Digging into past articles on the Standard-Examiner site showed several previous articles about growth at the airport, along with pushback from long-term GA tenants. This article from 2016 covers the high points: people living in hangars, using hangars as RV storage, even racing ATVs on the runway. I remember always being impressed by this hangar, complete with a deck and Dish TV antenna sticking out the back.

Curious if anyone who's close to the operations at OGD can comment on the past, present, and future of the facility?

 

[Clip4]

Sounds like the city is doing right to me.

 

[flyingron]

When I lived in northern Virginia I was based at two different airports after 9/11 (I was at VKX on 9/11 and was one of the first cleared to fly out of there). Both airports were in budding industrial areas trying to attract business to the areas. One pretty much treated you like crap if you weren't burning JET A. The place was locked up tighter than a drum after 5PM. Few hangars available, crappy tiedowns. etc... Built a slick building and commercial hangars with dreams of attracting some bizjets.

The other airport manager realized that having an active airport was essential to his county. But in order to get resources he needed (money to expand the runway, GPS LPV approaches to both ends, a localizer, etc).. he needed to show the airport was busy. To this end me encouraged the light GA crowd by keeping rents down, fuel cheap, building lots of hangars, 24 hour access to the ramp and to the bathrooms, Put in a wash ramp,etc. His justification was that the light GA was keeping his airport in shape while the heavy stuff came.

I can tell you a lot of airports invested heavily trying to get or retain airline service and it never is a "build it and they will come" situation. If the traffic isn't there (or an EAS subsidy or the like), the airlines can't afford to fly there just because you have a pretty terminal.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Us little guys are essential,...until we are in the way.

 

[GRG55]

Us little guys are essential,...until we are in the way.

That's the story around my region. As the regional airports moved upscale the rents went up faster than inflation and the rules started restricting small GA due to things such as "security concerns from the scheduled airline".

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

That's the story around my region. As the regional airports moved upscale the rents went up faster than inflation and the rules started restricting small GA due to things such as "security concerns from the scheduled airline".

have seen it / heard of it many, many times. There must be a playbook now - used by all airport managers who see only the money.. and then try to evict the small users.

 

[Rockymountain]

The thing that is most concerning is shortening land leases or not renewing leases altogether. in essence, the previously owned hangars become property of the airport. If they don't renew my lease, my 50X40 heated and plumbed hangar which I purchased, and upgraded with new insulated walls, new epoxy floor, LED lighting, becomes the property of Ogden City. They may or may not let me lease my own hangar from them, after they take it from me. Seems to infringe on property rights to me. Never imagined when I put down 100K for the hangar, and then put another 25 K in renovations, that it could be taken away from me without any compensation. Ogden city has not been kind to the GA tenants and owners at Ogden. I pay commercial rates for electricity, water and heat. My property taxes and land leases have doubled. I own businesses in the area, and pay a healthy amount in taxes. Anyway, the airport owners group have retained some heavy hitters, specializing in government over-reach and abuse. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. Otherwise, Ogden is a great airport. 3 FBO's, good instrument approaches, cheap fuel,and would be sad to see it be mismanage and run the lifeblood out of it.

 

[Jumpmaster]

We are experiencing the same thing at KCOE. The turbine drivers and their owners are taking over and the piston poppers can simply go to hell. We have a new FBO under construction by Stancraft, the maker of high end, luxury wooden boats. They start in the $400K range and go up. Their new FBO will also have a refurbishment facility for luxury interiors on a wide variety of corporate jets and turboprops. At the same time the airport management want to decouple Runways 24 and 20 claiming the FAA rates them as a high risk for intersection collision. So the solution is to chop a 1000ft off of 20/02 which will reduce it to 4400’. Plenty long for GA but not so for some corporate aircraft. So that would leave only 24/06 which is 7400’ for most corporate aircraft that we see here, e.g., Falcons, some G4’s, etc. The FAA FISDO representative rejected all public comments and input in a recent public meeting on the matter and the FAA has gone on record as saying they will not consider nor will they pay for alternatives such as lengthening 20 to avoid the intersection problem, or simply put up better signage like other airports have done to address the same problem. AOPA has been entirely useless in this matter. Oh and Stancraft, which charges at least $1 per gallon more for 100LL than anybody else in the area, is in support of the decoupling. See they have figured out that all of the turbine traffic (or nearly all) will need to use 06/24 once 02/20 is shortened and since they are located just off 06/24, corporate aircraft will come to them rather than being forced to taxi completely around the airport to go to the other FBO that currently takes care of the turbines. Nothing like local government favoring one business over another.

And yes, we have the security “concerns as well. Way long time ago we had a commuter airline here that went broke. But we still have a Part 139 (Class IV) certificate and the airport management thinks that some day we will once again have an air charter business or an air carrier, notwithstanding we have no terminal or facilities nor the money to pay for them. So we all now have to have prox cards for gate access, take tests, and now Airport Management want to assess hangar owners to fence the areas between hangars for extra security. That’s currently in litigation by several hangar owners. Airport management apparently believes the public doesn’t own the airport and thus has no right to access it. Good grief.

 

[fasteddie]

The thing that is most concerning is shortening land leases or not renewing leases altogether. in essence, the previously owned hangars become property of the airport.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out. Otherwise, Ogden is a great airport. 3 FBO's, good instrument approaches, cheap fuel,and would be sad to see it be mismanage and run the lifeblood out of it.

Interesting to get the boots-on-the-ground perspective.

I'm not an airport designer, but I can look up a satellite image on Google maps. It seems like OGD has a ton of open space to the west of the main runway (bordered by 31st St / Hinckley Drive). If the city wants to expand operations at the airport, has there been any exploration of building out those areas, as opposed to what seems like the current trend of putting-the-screws to the GA tenants? Or is there some underlying reason why that side of the airport isn't built up?

 

[Ghery]

That's the story around my region. As the regional airports moved upscale the rents went up faster than inflation and the rules started restricting small GA due to things such as "security concerns from the scheduled airline".

We had an airline using the terminal at KOLM for a flight to/from Spokane for a while when I was still working for Intel. We shared the terminal building with them, but our shuttles were Part 91 operations. It was great fun to watch the passengers on the airline put up with the TSA nonsense while we just checked in, they saw that our name was on the list for the flight, and then we waited until it was time to board. No TSA, no nonsense. The airline went out of business and later we moved back across the airport. They still don't have commercial air service out of KOLM and we don't miss it at all, although when it was there it did not impact GA at all.

 

[IK04]

If I knew there were people using hangars as their primary residence, keeping an RV in it and not owning an airplane, I'd be upset.

Where I live, twenty people have to die before you can even move up on a wait list for a hangar.

Besides the Federal airport funds issue, it's just not the right thing to do...