Airport Board Denies Fee Waivers for Westjet, Dale Aviation, Moyle Petroleum

Temporary financial relief requests from three aeronautical tenants at Rapid City Regional Airport were denied Tuesday by the Airport Board of Directors.

Westjet Air Center and Dale Aviation penned a joint letter to the board asking for rent, airport fees and charges to be waived for 180 days, and the suspension of the 2020 rate adjustments for ground lease rates.

A third aeronautical tenant, Moyle Petroleum, requested rent, airport fees and charges be waived for the remainder of 2020.

"What we're looking for is some relief because general aviation is a vital part of the airport," Westjet Air Center President Linda Rydstrom said. "Without general aviation, you don't have fuel services to the airlines. We back up airlines if they need help with de-icer, if they need help with equipment. We've actually had airlines come to us to see what we can do. We've also had other tenants and other users of the airport (come to us)."

Dean Beresford, chief pilot for Moyle Petroleum, said his company's biggest concern was the landing fee charged for aircraft that weigh over 12,500 pounds.

"Normally, based aircraft are exempt from this (fee)," Beresford said. "I've been paying bills for 30 years and I've never seen a based-operator getting charged landing fees. We're the only airplane on the airport that gets charged the landing fee that's based here."

Rapid City Regional Airport will be receiving a $9.2 million grant through the federal CARES Act, which provides coronavirus relief. However, Airport Executive Director Patrick Dame said that grant is for the operations of the airport itself, not tenants.

"The funds are obligated to airport operations, maintenance and debt service. They are not there to provide direct benefits to aeronautical tenants," Dame said. "There are other federal programs tenants are eligible for and we hope they have taken advantage of them."

Airport Board Vice President Rod Pettigrew said he understands that the airport's general aviation tenants are experiencing financial difficulties because of the drop in air travel due to the coronavirus, but the loss is no different than what other businesses in Rapid City are going through.

"Just because you're located on this field, in my opinion — and this is not the opinion of the board — I don't think you are entitled to any special benefits other than a guy on Main Street Rapid City going through the same thing," Pettigrew said.

Dame said on the aeronautical side of the airport's service, the staff is very limited on what they can do because of fair treatment regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration.

"On the non-aeronautical side, we have more leeway to work on that. If we start waiving fees on the aeronautical side, there are more stipulations that we go through in creating equality between groups on the airport," Dame said. "We want to work to benefit everybody on the airfield without putting ourselves in a situation where we are picking and choosing who gets benefits and who doesn't."

Dame said with the emergency CARES grant, the airport will be able to pay its bills, do maintenance on the field and cover expenses to prevent tenants from having to pay more in the future.

"Airport management intends to continue to operate the airport and will submit operating costs to the CARES Act grant, which will prevent us from reducing our reserves and aid us in continuing to conduct business," he said. "This will also allow us to do maintenance projects in the future to prevent additional expenses on aeronautical users. Those projects that would otherwise get deferred, due to lack of airport revenue, can proceed with government assistance at 100% federal funding. This will allow us to spread the benefit across all aeronautical users."

Contact Assistant Managing Editor Nathan Thompson at [email protected].

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