Rochester, Minn., Aviation to be sold

    March 7, 2006
    Pilots for corporate jets and other private planes will check the weather and drop off passengers with a new fixed base operator at the Rochester International Airport within the next two weeks.

    Source Post-Bulletin (Rochester, MN)

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    Mar. 6 -- Pilots for corporate jets and other private planes will check the weather and drop off passengers with a new fixed base operator at the Rochester International Airport within the next two weeks.

    Regent Aviation Inc. of St. Paul is buying out the airport's fixed base operator, Rochester Aviation, in a deal due to be closed by April 1, Regent president Joe LaFontsee confirmed last week. Financial details of the transaction are not being released.

    Regent had been looking to branch out and was familiar with the local operation. "They had showed an interest in selling and we were certainly interested in expanding," Regent President Joe LaFontsee said in an interview last week. "It was a nice fit."

    The acquisition of Rochester Aviation and its parent company, Hiawatha Aviation of Rochester, gives Regent its second site. The company currently is the fixed base operator for St. Paul's downtown airport, running a local franchise for national Million Air Interlink Inc. However, it will hang the Regent name over the door at Rochester, LaFontsee said.

    A related deal also ushers in a full-time flight school at the city-owned field on Rochester's far south side. RARE Aviation Inc. of Owatonna opened its first branch at the airport on Feb. 1, chief flight instructor Karen Redman said.

    Fixed base operators typically operate a terminal and sell fuel, maintenance and other services to non-commercial and charter flights.

    Rochester's business includes small private planes on leisure trips, corporate jets, medical air ambulances, some cargo planes and even royal jumbo jets arriving for medical visits at the Mayo Clinic.

    LaFontsee, who just passed 25 years in the flight support industry, said his company is experienced in arrangements for medical traffic, which is commonplace at Rochester Aviation. "I have an airplane just outside my window right now that just brought in skin grafts, for example," he said.

    LaFontsee said current Rochester Aviation President Steve Birdseye will remain as general manager for Regent's new operation. So will the current staff of about 50 workers, many of them part-timers.

    Birdseye deferred to LaFontsee, saying he could not comment.

    Hiawatha Aviation, which uses the Rochester Aviation name, is owned by the Birdseye family. Well-known businessman Art Birdseye, Steve's father, has run businesses including a fuel company and a taxicab firm in the past.

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