Flagstaff Airport Celebrates Inaugural Mainline Service and Secures Record-Breaking Federal Grant Position for Second Airline

Who is who is uh gonna be joining us? Uh it's Belion. Yes. Um I am white. All right. The recording has started whenever we do want to call the meeting to order as we have quorum. Okay. Let's call a meeting to order. Um it's 1301. And a quick roll call for the commissioners. Uh, Commissioner Carpenter present. Commissioner Hanovich. Commissioner don't see Commissioner Hanovich on today. Commissioner Sha present. Commissioner Spelky present. Commissioner White present.

additionally with our commissioners, it looks like uh Nicholas Barza uh name was not called, but it does not look like he's present. Okay. And we still have a forum that we commissioner, you might be just Okay. Any public comment, participation, or input today? Uh, no response. So, we're going to move on. Any announcements. Okay. Approval of the minutes. Hopefully, everybody's had a chance to review the minutes of the last meeting. So, do I hear a motion to approve? This is Commissioner Sh.

I'll motion to approve. And I'll second that as Commissioner White. Okay. All those in favor? I I. And uh anyone opposed? Nothing heard. So those are approved. City Council updates. Hello. Council member Lori Matthews here.

Um, in April, early part of April, I was part of the delegation to go to DC with the mayor and council member Garcia um to lobby for different funding sources and um definitely had some great conversations about our snow removal building and um we got a lot of positive feedback acknowledging our new forgot his name. I gave Brian his direct contact information, but um he totally gets um harsh weather and the wear and tear on all the great equipment that they have invested in giving us.

So that was really great. And um there was one other thing that we talked about um on the airport. Um but we also Oh, we talked to that same gentleman um from was it USDA? That was FAA. No, not FA. the property acquisition or Yeah. But we also talked to him about um the need for um you know second airline and stuff. So we just kind of had a global conversation about that. Um and it was really good. Um also also I just want this I was supposed to drop some officers.

I don't know if this is you guys or not. Is Orville not able to join the meeting? Is Oral not here? He's no but we'll sure. Okay. I think maybe they're on their way then. I know. I was supposed to drop this off whatever meeting Orville was part of. So, cool. So, um interesting gifts. Um the only um real important thing right now is the regional plan.

Um if you have received your ballot, you live within the city limits, um the last day to mail in your vote is Monday because the election is the end of next week, I think. Um, I'm encouraging people. We have a fact sheet on the city website, but also AI is a really great I mean, I'm not a urban planner, you know, it's like hundreds of pages and it's all Greek to me, but um, I reached out to a couple of AI apps that I have on my phone and I didn't even have to upload the document.

I said, "How would the proposed Flagstaff 2045 regional plan affect X or this?" You know, I would you have to be specific. And it was really helpful to get um uh some feedback on that specific instead of trying to uh read through and study and interpret the regional plan. Um so that's um coming up and that's been a really big focus of ours.

Also, I just wanted to share with you that we've had a citizen uh committee since October, I believe, uh discussing um public safety, which includes um airport um security, fire, and uh security I think too, right? Um and that is going to come to uh council I think in the next two weeks. the recommendation. We are looking at a uh potential sales tax increase and also a um property tax. And I just wanted to explain to people the property tax because I think it's a really great option.

It would help us with our uh equipment and building um aspect. Our treasurer has proposed that we cut our secondary property tax that just can only go to paying off bonds that we've had before, our housing bond and things in the past. And we've been aggressively paying them off. Um um to cut that percentage in half and move it over to the primary, we would still have 95 million in bond capacity, which the rule of thumb is to use about that. So 40 45 million.

And that would uh move over to the general fund if it's in primary net to businesses actually would save like 20 bucks um a year and and personal property um owners it doesn't affect them at all maybe within a dollar. Um but it would add about 587,000 to the general fund for on you know ongoing uh expenses. And so that will be that could be a really big um jump in the right direction for public safety. So that is coming.

If there is a recommendation for a bond andor tax um that will also be on the ballot in November. Um so we have to make that decision and get it on the ballot by July. Um so they're working at the speed of light, but those are um a couple pressing issues. What's the sales tax increase? Um, their proposal, I've heard, is 50 cents. I don't I don't agree that we need that much. Maybe 25 cents. Um, going to go almost to 12%. Yeah. So, I'm not a big fan.

I've been kind of pushing for uh budget cuts, but it's hard. You know, we can't fund it in general fund anymore.

part of the part of the ask is not just right now instead of one-time funding where they just okay we have the money we can continue to fund this um we need it to move to ongoing but um the um I just lost my train of thought um the the bigger ask is for the things that we've projected we did a great exercise on say not just you know day-to-day survival but what do we need like we need a fire station off JW PAL because we're going to get shovels to the ground here in the next year.

Um, and things like that. So, um, it includes future funding needs for both fire and PD. Um, and airport, I believe, is in there, too. It's true. So, um, so there's a big ask. So, we'll we don't know what they're going to recommend. I'm doing my own research and investigation and scenario um analysis and just waiting kind of to see what the citizen group comes up with and then see where it lines up with what I think we need to do. Ryan, does our funding come out of the general fund?

Uh, a portion of our funding comes out of support for the general fund, a portion of it comes out of airport revenue. So the airport if you know or not know is considered a enterprise fund which means it it in theory is supposed to support all of its operations through the collection of fees and revenues and we run um about 400,000 short a year. It was 250 and then the last budget retreat I think um Heidi Derberry said 400,000.

So, you know, there's some things that Brian's working on as far as uh airport um expansion in the hangar um area and if we got another airline that would be super fantastic. Um, so we all kind of know the economic um, you know, and I try to bring it up when we talk about the airport, the economic impact that the airport has on our city, which you know, can't be quantified in just a balance sheet or profit and loss, but it definitely uh tracks a lot of revenue to uh, flag staff.

So, but to raise up um, its ability to support itself would be super fantastic. So that's where the general funds comes out of. They the general fund pays the deficit that the airport has. Correct. Chair, we do have a hand up from Commissioner Stoki. Yes. Thank you. Go ahead. Councilwoman Matthews, I was just curious. Just want to make sure these ballots go in. We get this regional plan that has had a lot of work to date to get it passed.

You say that mailin is by Monday, but is that considered the same? Is Monday the cut off for um dropboxes as well? You know, uh good question. I don't think it is. Um because it definitely the ballots that you mail have to be in hand the day of the election. Um and so um I I I don't have that specific verification, but my assumption would be no. Um because you can drop off up to the day of the election because there's no inerson voting. So, you either have mail in or drop off. Okay, great.

Yeah, I'm pushing the family here to get it in. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for your work. And we did have a comment in the chat from Commissioner Sha. Commissioner Sha, did you want to share that or did you want me to read it? Uh, you could just read that, but I was cur I guess I'm curious with the talking to different residents. I've heard a lot about uh a lot of people's local property taxes just increasing in a pretty major way this last round.

So, I'm I'm curious with the with the additional revenues that are being generated from that if those are being taken into consideration.

uh they are um and I don't have the um exact percentage but I was under the misconception that when our tax assessment on our property you know happens a year like oh our values have gone up you know so much um by state statute um your property tax and your assessed value can only go up I want to say 2% a year so even though we see house values and c you know prices go up a lot. It's a slow increase. Um so I'm hoping there is also an option on the table for this city.

We have not increased primary property taxes for probably 10 years and we've left about 14% on the table um in doing that. I don't think anybody is um suggesting we um make up for that and do a huge huge tax. I mean that the cost of living, you know, we just had a um a consultant about the public safety uh question um did a survey and once again it's always the same. Cost of living, housing um are you know in the top you know two three.

So, you know, property tax values or taxes going up directly impacts your cost of living. If it if you're a renter, it's it's going to impact um your rent. But the recommendation from Rick Tatter, our treasurer, on shifting the secondary property tax percentage over to the primary will be a net even. Um there won't be any increase. So, um, that I'm curious the educated in that and know that that's not going to impact their bottom line. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off.

I must have cut out there for a second. That's right. Um, so my my property tax value increased 400%. Over the last one, and I had a another couple residents I talked to where they saw well beyond 2% increases. So maybe there's a chance to follow up after the meeting about that. Yeah, I can look into that. I think what you might be seeing is just, you know, additional um taxes that the voters have approved. So, that is different than just in, you know, the the increase in what the city does.

We have not the city has not increased their tax. You've got the county as well, school districts and stuff, but the city of Flagstaff itself have not changed and raised and it is the county. the county was my understanding because I uh did an appeal with them in the whole thing and what they told me to my face was that they're assessing based on market rates rather than cost rates now. Okay. So I know quite a few citizens who have seen their assessments go up by almost 100%. Yeah.

I'm gonna I'm gonna cut this. Yeah. Sorry. We're off topic now. Yeah. Way off topic. So, we'll return to the airport business. Any other comments, Councilman? No, that was it. Okay. All right. Let's move on to uh staff reports. Thank you, Cherell. Starting off with the airport uh operations update. So, employments, as a reminder, employments are revenue passengers boarding commercial flights. April's employments were up 8% over 2025.

rounded out April with 8,145 employments which was a strong month for us if you look back historically at the last three years. Uh that is one of our stronger months for sure. Uh not just for April but for the whole year. Um in first quarter 2026 employments were up 3.6% over first quarter of 2025. Uh that's despite having fewer seats available. So American Airlines had adjusted their flight schedules a little bit um a little bit more strategic flight timing uh and things like that.

So we actually saw an increase in employments despite a slight decrease in number of seats available and that's done you can end up with small adjustments in seats available by adjusting say one flight a week or something could take out 60 seats 65 seats available. So it doesn't have to be something necessarily even a daily change but we did see a decrease in seats and an increase in deployments. So strong quarter for us so far. Now each aircraft takeoff and landing is counted as an operation.

April's operations were down 21.8% from 2025. Um you can see both um I don't have the numbers in here, but both March or I'm sorry, February, March, and April have all been down uh fairly consistently uh with pretty significant decreases from last year. Um Oral might have a little more to say about that when we get to the FDO update. I believe we are seeing some impacts for things like fuel prices. Uh we did have some pretty good flying weather this spring.

Though of course the winds uh do sometimes make it challenging for some of our general aviation traffic. We are seeing a pretty significant decrease in counted tower operations for the last three months. Parking revenue um so for the airport terminal and economy parking lots combined parking revenue was up 9.9% in April. So a very strong uh month for us. That's reflected in those employment numbers.

I think we're we're seeing pretty close tracking of the increase in employments with parking revenue. Uh for first quarter 2026, parking revenue is up 3.4% over first quarter 2025. As a reminder, we did uh at both at this commit uh commission and then also at um council get a parking rate increase approved that but that has not yet taken effect. So uh that doesn't start until later this year. We did ask add the lost ticket fee.

So there might be a few of those fees that have been charged that weren't previously, but we expect that to be a pretty small impact. Um, so most of this increase is just through increased traffic. I have an interruption. Um, Mr. Commissioner Henovich said that he is uh has not been let in. Could we see if there's nobody waiting in so he might need to sign out and sign back in a different page? Yeah, I just double checked that as well. There is um nobody in the waiting room at the moment.

Thanks. Okay. Fuel flow measures the volume of aviation fuels dispensed at the airport. April's fuel flow is up 11.5% over 2025. Fuel flow in the first quarter of 2026 was similarly up 11.1% over the first quarter of 2025. So very strong um performance on the fuel so far. I'm sure Oral will have some updates related to that, but I think some of that speaks to the fleet mix we're seeing here. So operations count, every every aircraft, every aircraft's created equal under the operations count.

So light GA helicopters, all of those things, you know, big business jets and commercial flights or large charter flights are all counted the same. Whereas on fuel sales, of course, larger aircraft tend to purchase more fuel in many cases than some of the smaller ones. So I think we might be seeing uh this combined with the operational numbers show a little bit of a shifting trend in the traffic that we're seeing out here for the first quarter.

U is light light correct small has negative connotation. Good point. Thank you. I'm serious. And that's uh what I have for the operations report. If anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Okay. You great. Thank you. Is going to bring up our little PowerPoint here. I been really lucky. You haven't had to hear from me for a while.

Um first I guess I'll start out with you probably already heard this um because this made me think about some of the things that are kind of going on but um we've gone out of a lmia. We're going into what they're actually calling a super elino weather pattern. Um, I was a big person against AI these days and now I have a subscription to Chat GT and everything else.

But I was like, what's uh, you know, Flagstaff snowfall supposed to be like, but yeah, there we should have a pretty heavy winter and we should start to see some pretty good rainfall going in the monsoons. And I'm super happy about that because it's really, really dry right now. Um the tanker base opened earlier in Winslow which you know we're at and they put they positioned a MD87 there right away. Um it ended up having to go to California to deal with something.

So anyway, hopefully we're going to get back into some normal precipitation and lakes fill up and wood green up whatever. Um our next hanger event uh is probably going to be in late July. Had some requests. We got we have too many requests and for those of you who don't know, we don't charge. We always donate that a lot of times. I'm the sponsor of the vet on top of that.

But it's super disruptive to our normal operations because we got to dump the hanger and it's nice because it forces us to clean up more than we probably would. But June is our busiest month and with the potential of having a lot of fire activity, I just I had to turn down a couple things. One, which to be totally honest was a bit political. I was a little uneasy about, but I was like, look, I can't have all, you know, three ring circus going on. We need to stick to our core business here.

It's not even a business. It's just a service to the um community. Uh we're looking at some technology right now. Uh what's the name of that company, Brian? That Yeah, there's there's a few different airport aircraft operations tracking softwares, right? The 1200 1200 Arrow is one of them. Uh that allows you to see sort of aircraft movement in the vicinity of an airport. So, sort of like radar, but it tracks and records aircraft operations.

Uh we actually just subscribe to it over for our WHZO location. It'll give us all kinds of reports, you know, 24/7 and break down the type aircraft, but you can also get FBO wise. I'd really like to be able to track the trucks, but I may have to actually put like some pricey ADSB transmitters on so I know how fast they're going, where they're going, how long they're doing things.

But it'll also tell us where we've parked aircraft, like where the aircraft shut down, how long it sat there, so forth and so on. Um anyway, next page. And last, but certainly not least, um my point of sale software vendor, my FBL, last week sent out a message to all this saying, "Hey, we're no longer going to have this program in August." So now we we've been using that program for like a dozen years. We're running around with our hair on fire.

Um talking to some other vendors, us and several other people that use this program. um back when World Fuels got into the market and bought up uh some of the fuel companies, they uh they bought my FBL, toll FBL, one other they kind of dominated the market. They divested themselves a couple others but kept this one apparently supported anymore and honestly it couldn't come in a worse time. Our busiest time of year now we got to look at converting data for several years and everything.

So in a way it's good. It was a bit of an antiquated program, but you know, I've said before, we're kind of a dinosaur in industry in terms of most FPLs these days don't do everything we do. They're mainly just want to sell fuel, but I've got the flight school, I've got the maintenance department, so forth and so on. And um yeah, so that that was a big surprise last week. Next, please. Uh Cocon had their third prong in the hanger. I'm happy to report the building's still standing.

Um, we had no problems. They actually do a super great job. The first year I met with them. I, uh, I said, "Look, no tape on the walls, etc., etc., because when the tape comes off, so is a pain." And all the different functions I've had in 20ome years. Those kids were smart. They, first of all, they rent two scissor lifts. They put in outdoor bathrooms, plenty of chaperones. They use magnets for everything. and then magnets to hang all their stuff, which I thought was super smart.

And I was talking to the head of the that handles this for for prom. She goes, "You know, after we did that two years ago, now that's what we use at the school now. Put stuff up in the gym and everything." So, next, please. Um, business-wise, it it's funny because Brian talks about how operations are down, but honestly, like our fuel numbers are up and uh we camp naval had an exercise a couple weeks ago.

Um, there was a few there was the Marines involved and the guard involved so forth and so on. Um and then um so we had that going on and then we just happened to have a C130 come from Kentucky that wanted to spend the weekend and uh the Marines called them and said, "Hey, you want to go fly with us for a day?" But they brought their golf clubs and stuff and we even answer their phones. But we sold a lot of fuel that day. I'm not going to lie.

I think it was that Friday when everybody first showed up. It was one of our better days in recent time. made for a pretty full ramp because we had the McCain Sedona forum going on as well that weekend. Didn't see as much traffic as we have in the past, but and and everything went great. Uh, next, please. Um, some good news. Jet Fuel has just gone through the ceiling for us. I mean, if I was the whole percentage-wise my margin like I should be, I'd be $12 and something a gallon right now.

And I did breach 10 this past week because I'm like, man, I just I can't keep doing this. And so it went down substantially this week. Tuesdays is when we get price notified. It was it was a big drop. I hope it continues that. The kind of I don't know the funny part about it going to the second line is the turbine market's been really strong regardless of the fuel price. And Brian's right, our fleet mix has changed. Back when we first opened, we're kind of a typical GA airport.

70% jet, 30% AG gas. A pretty typical mix. We run about 5% a gas now, 5 to 6%. Our average uplift on a gas is about 33 gallons. Our average uplift on jets about 250 gallons. If you do a time analysis, take the truck out, chalk it, ground to get the ladder out, pull the hoses out, fill out the fuel tank, etc., etc. to the receptionist. It doesn't take much longer to pump 250 gallons than it does 33 gallons. And our margin is substantially higher to be totally candid on Jeff's gas.

But we're seeing a lot more Gulf Streams from East Coast, Florida, stuff like that, taking strong uplifts, which is good for everybody because the city's obviously getting a fuel flow out of it. Um, general aviation is is remain consistent. You know, weekends are picking up and we're having to issue the NOTAMS. I think we issued one today in anticipation of the Overland Expo. We usually get people flying for that.

Um, in fact, the CEO of AE, which I'm a big fan of, came in in the series yesterday. So, he's already here. Uh, next page, please. We just completed all the uh, you know, everybody gets all excited. We're getting mainline, right? Well, there's there's the back side of that story that you don't know about, which is the auditors come in.

Um, I the maintenance odd didn't take too terribly long, but I know Josh spent about four hours and then Grant and Josh both spent eight hours of training with a guy online and so they're all checked out. But anyway, we're all set for that. Um, met with Airbus recently about possibly doing some how to testing their helicopters in the fall. Last week we went down to Puma Community College uh aviation technology aerospace career fair. If you've never seen that facility, it's incredible.

They have a Boeing 727 in the middle of it. This big hanger they built with classrooms with glass doors all the way around it. The secondary we've gone. Felt like there was less people that turned out, but uh more sort of qualified people we talked to looking for. So, um Mir got her sick on the way down. Randle wasn't good on the way back from the mixing food we ate. So, it was a heck of a trip. Anyway, um January started out slow.

Um things have picked up and as Brian showed, any month from then has been 5 to 30% above compared to the previous year. The pine cone thing, you know, I got the pine cone call sign. You know, it was funny because I just spent the last three days uh with the AU football coach flying around Southern California um looking at kids and stuff like that.

And we were coming down the coast Tuesday afternoon off uh LA over Catalina and you know there's American this and United that and then Pine Cone one and he actually laughed. He's up front with a headset on. I go what? He goes it's just funny. We're up here with American United and Pine Cone one. I go you got it. So but we've got stickers. I brought some to show you guys. Um we can't hardly keep them. Everybody loves the stickers. Oh, I got some.

Give them a little magnetic screwdriver we have at the trade at the trade show. Grab it there. Do you want me to? They're a little hard to Yeah. But at the end, it was never intended to be like some kind of marketing thing, but it's turned into that. And, uh, we're going to get some swag made. Oh, thank you, world. Yeah. So, uh, having a lot of fun with it to be honest. And most of the controllers know who I am now.

So the when you go and get get your your uh call sign, you pick a name and you pick a threeletter identifier. All right. So FWA was available. So if you go and look at FWA1, that's me. Like you put it in flight and it could be any airplane I am like whatever airplane the president of the United States and his air force won. Any plane over wise men is fine cone one. But so it's FWA1. Well, a lot of times they were calling me flightaware because they didn't know.

And I finally got LA one day all the whole frequencies going on on about and he's like, well, and then he looks me up because they can look you up, right? Well, what's new doing? Where are you based? I'm like, man, I don't really mind having this conversation over center frequency, right? So, I'm like, we're fly school at that. But, um, and I had one guy asked me, he goes, well, how do you get pine cone out FWA?

And I said, "Well, how do you get a a cactus out AWE, which was America less?" And that was the end of the conversation on the frequency. Anyway, let's see. We got Is that it? Yeah, that's it. If anybody's got any questions. So, Tucson School, are they getting more students or are they the production up or is it down? I didn't, you know, I couldn't really find out.

Um, I can just tell you there was a few less attendees, but like I had one young man, his dad come up to me, he was in high school, and say, "Hey, is there a job market here?" I go, "Let me tell you, is there a job market?" And and I'll tell you what, just not to drag us out too much longer, but um we had uh a young man I've talked about before, Ray. He um he went to NA, got his business degree, graduated during COVID, couldn't find a job. I said, "Ray, you're pretty hand handy.

You want to come in the shop?" Because I said, "Between your management degree and an AMP." So he you got to do 30 months to get both your letters if it's under supervision instead of going to school. He got both his letters and his wife wanted to move to Phoenix. He got a job down at Textron at the Cessna Citation Service Center and Cirrus just looked him up to manage his uh their sir service center in Scottsdale and the pay is it's almost $200,000 a year. Wow. And he Yeah.

was turn wrenches for wise nation that long ago. So yeah, so I told that story. I said, "Hey, there's there's plenty of man." So yeah, you can almost live in Phoenix on that. Yeah. Don't tell my new mechanics that. All right. Anyway, well, thanks. Sure. And I know you probably don't give many thank yous from the city, but thanks for doing all that uh hanger stuff. Okay, Adam, I think you're next. Val, we do have a hand up. Looks like uh Commissioner Stoki. Oh, thank you, Commissioner.

I just had a quick question. In all your AI, have you have you been projecting out futures on jet fuel pricing? No, I haven't I haven't asked that. I I I learned a long time ago, you know, don't don't try to do that. I know companies like Southwest sometimes will do that and then buy a bunch and if it goes down they make a bunch of money and if it goes up or if it goes up they they do well. If it goes down they don't do so well. But I don't have anywhere to put it anyway.

I've never really talked about doing that. I I don't even know how I would do that. And you know um I guess it's something you could do but the market's pretty volatile. All it takes is one thing you weren't expecting. Like there's been some refinery fires lately. Um, which has really screwed things up. So, yeah. Okay. Any other Okay, now sticker, buddy. This is going to be quick. Just got a few little things we've been working on.

Um, the one the first one I want to talk about is our airfield maintenance phase seven. Um the the first six were um CARES projects. So we continued it uh for our own personal nomenclature. But uh as everyone's aware uh Americans bringing in that Airbus uh 319 and because of that as Orville alluded to there's a whole bunch of backend stuff that needs to happen like markings at the commercial apron. Those um uh envelopes no longer apply so to speak.

So Brian uh worked with American with their ops people. They drew up a plan. It's sent out a surveyor and laid out some points and we needed to go ahead and hurry up and deliver and get these markings done before um obviously the 21st when we have the big event. So what this the new layout entails is we have two leadins that will accomp that will um hold an A319 and smaller aircraft.

Um the third leadin was essentially was a remnant of a of a United layout and what we did is we refreshed that too. What we didn't want to do is uh freshen up 80% of the apron and then leave the last 20%. So what we went ahead and did is we went and obliterated all of the existing lines for those two leadin lines and put in new.

Also another interesting factoid that uh happened during this little exercise that Brian and I had with American is we found out we started asking the question our site of boundary why doesn't it encapsulate all of the Americans equipment and whoever if we get another carrier we would we think that needs to be protected in our enclosed sight boundary. So what we did is we moved our cider boundary uh more towards the north there by about 93 ft uh just to clean that up.

We are currently working with TSA. We're going to go ahead and get that um updated in our ASP air airport security plan. So they approved it. They signed off on it um to do the change condition. So we're real happy about that. Uh, we think I think it turned out really well, especially given if you would have told Brian and I that you'd have to uh red do redo those markings in the first part of May. Uh, historically going back to the weather, you've lost your mind.

There's no way we won't have the temp. We got lucky. That was last week. Uh, we had good weather for that. Wind was a little bit challenging at times, but we got that done. So, we're all ready for them. Can you if you ever had to can you have separate situs? Like if you had to go there a whiskey and do a box for some reason, could you do that? Yeah, we've got we've got uh separate situs at this facility. So, we cleaned it up quite a bit with this particular project on the uh mantra of painting.

So, uh, way back June of 2023, we had a maintenance project that we participated with with ADOT where we put a seal coat on the runway and taxiway uh, with the exclusion of alpha 1 to alpha 2. That pavement is in bad shape, so it did not qualify. Well, during that project, all in all, it was a very successful project. We noticed right away that we had some inconsistency in the paint quality. Uh we were getting blisters.

They looked like little blisters um in the striping and you poke it and there was no paint underneath. And so what we did was we documented, hey, we've got a warranty issue here. Um since that time, we've had the subcontract or I guess they were prime were they not? We had the contractor up here a few other times to to correct some of the um warranty items and it just never really worked out. We had bad products so they had to redo some things.

So bad weather, bad weather, very bad weather, wind. Um so they decided to come back up here and go ahead and get rid of uh take care of the rest of those warranty items. And it was everything from adjacent to runway taxi way and even in the hangar area. So what we've done is this week we went ahead and well pulled our bootstraps a little bit tighter and and hope that the wind wouldn't be too bad and we got it all complete. So as of right now there's no more painting oral.

Tell your team thank you. No more closures. Um in the pictures here you can kind of see a before and after. So before there was a whole bunch of missing paint where those blisters were I was mentioning. And then this morning we uh that's at alpha 1 the hold bar there. We went ahead and got that cleaned up. And then we did some work um in the um hanger area as well. But all nine of the stop bars have been redone since that project.

Uh three of which were done on previous attempts but there were some quality issues. Uh, we really encouraged this contractor to come out here and get this done because our part 139 inspection is coming up pretty soon and we really did not want a letter of correction. So, check mark. It's done. And our ILS markings at the runup area are now parallel as opposed to a skew. Probably a good thing. It's It's a great thing. Any questions on that?

Let's say Adam's underelling a little bit the effort it took to take this. He's been out here starting at I think 5:30 every day for most of the week. Five. So, um, appreciate your efforts and keeping them in line and getting the long process checked off.

Uh, taken a lot of due diligence on on behalf of us, our staff plus AOT, plus the consultant that was working on it to make sure they got up and finished this and did it and the patience of our controllers because we were shutting down very large sections of an active runway, taxi way, taxi way, excuse me, not runway, you know. And then last but not least, um again, um and I look at Orville here.

He said, "Well, there's a whole bunch of things that have to happen on the back end." One of those things is our hold room. Um Brian and I went downstairs and we did a a seat count. We had 111. And when you pencil it out with a 319 and a and a 700 out there and you look at, okay, you put in a factor. So 80% full or 75% full. How many seats would that take? Oh, we got a problem.

Um, so what we did was uh Brian went ahead and looked at it, laid it out different, and we were able to get 31 more seats in there. Um, we borrowed those seats from uh at baggage claim as well as up here and what we affectionately call our living room by the fireplace. Right by the fireplace. So, we're quite a bit more efficient in those two areas. But, this is this is critical. Uh, this is one of those critical steps.

So, we were able to just uh modify some of our internal operations just and take those assets and and put them in there. Um, I've heard from our TSA friends and a couple of our my personal friends that have flown through here, they like the layout quite a bit. Everybody said, "Oh, it actually makes more sense now." Um, so we would like to get some more in there, but we're we're waiting and seeing. Um, we there's not a lot of room left.

So, and we want it to make sense and have flow and safety is number one. We need to make sure we maintain aisles to emergency exits and so on and so forth. And we do have some additional furniture on order to replace the upstairs area. Uh so we'll be getting some nicer, more modern lounge seating for other parts of the terminal. I have a question. The new um Airbus, how many seats is it? 200 128. 128. Okay. there.

So, now we're up to 142 seats in there, uh, with some capacity for some additionals if needed. So, that's all I have for you. Okay, thanks. And I think Claire is up next. I am. So, on May 1st, we um submitted our application for the small community air service development grant. I know that we had talked about that a lot um in this room and it finally opened the end of March. It was open for a short period of time um and we submitted it um with our application that was very strong.

If you'd like some light reading, I'm more than happy to share it with you. Um and the our federal was $800 uh,000 and that helps subsidize the cost of a new airline um coming into Flagstaff. Certainly the cost to start up business um is expensive. So it's very common um for airports to sub subsidize an airline coming. Um a lot of them do that through business partners um or other community funding. Um but we've applied for this application or for this grant and we're very excited for it.

Um, with the application, we had two letters of support from two airlines as well as two letters of support from airports that would be a new destination. And then we were able um to get a 44.8% community cash match. Um where we've struggled in the past with our FAA debrief in the Department of Transportation um is that they've said that we have a strong um application, we have a strong business case.

We certainly um need more air service um but we've never had the amount of community cash contribution. So we worked really hard this year um to certainly gather um that amount of community cash. Um, and as you can see on the chart, um, the city of Flagstaff, Discover Flagstaff and the city of Flagstaff together were able, um, to contribute $250,000.

Um, and then we would very much like to thank Orville, uh, Wiseman Aviation did pledge $100,000, which is huge, and that really put us over the mark, um, to stand out with other applications. other applications that we've seen, um the highest community cash match was about 44.3%. Um we certainly knew Orville would support us somehow. Uh but we never imagined that it would be that high and that is really going to set us apart um in our application process. So, thank you, Orville.

We are very, very grateful and can't wait to help another celebration. got a little emotional. I presented the letter to him, but I wasn't crying because I was emotional. I was crying because Monday um and we were also I didn't put this in the slide. We were able to um get got we submitted the application with 21 letters of support. Uh and then until they start reviewing your application, I learned that you could still submit letters.

So, uh, Senator Gyos and Mark Kelly, um, submitted a letter a few days after and that was able to be able to be included in our application. So, we had 23 letters of support, um, from the community, all the surrounding municipalities, businesses, um, and then we had Napard, which gave us 5,000, Catalyst Based Technology 25,00 gave us $1,000. And as they say in the application and the process is cash is king.

So, we certainly do uh provide in-hind waiverss of landing fees um as well as in kind uh advertising and celebrations for the date party, but to be able to submit an application with a 44.8% match is huge. So, the application process and the review process is usually about 5 months. Uh we've heard that this year it might be a little bit shorter, so we're hopeful for that. Uh but we'll certainly um keep you posted on when we find out who the recipients are, but we're very excited. We're good.

Yeah. I have a question and a comment. Um I heard recently that Catalyst has um another um location in Denver. Um, so I'm glad that they're investing in, you know, helping us attract an airline because I think that's going to be really tough if we don't get another airline because, um, you know, cost. Although I asked, um, the owner, I forgot his name, um, how our cost of living in Flagstaff affects his staff and he said, "Oh yeah, they make so much money it doesn't matter." Um, which was good.

But, um, so I think this was really good. um when we were back in DC, we talked about this application process and thank you for what you said triggered that and this is really what he um the gentleman we spoke to said we needed to set us apart from uh the other applicants. So, and when I was at the jump start meeting conference last year, all the airlines asked us, "Do you have this money?

Do you have this money?" So it clearly is really important for airlines um even United that already knows the implantment and should have more confidence. They still are so spoiled they know well we're not coming unless we have it. So this is really good and it's very common unless you're Phoenix LAX you're a huge airport or even midsize level airports incentives are what airlines want to come and make sure that it will be successful. Did you get a letter from Congressman Crane? I did. Yes.

Thanks for all your hard work putting this together. It was a very competitive application. So, I appreciate your diligence getting that done. Thank you. And it's a very interesting read. It will be publicly available once the recipients are um awarded, but I've made a lot of people read it because it has fascinating statistics for our business case where we really are um an underserved market. We're isolated um and our fears are significantly higher um than other airports.

So, and my letter was outstanding and Orville's letter was outstanding and I will say that Orville, your letter was outstanding, but that 100,000 if that was really outstanding. Well, and you know what? I've been here a long time and I I'm confident. I I mean, we need the service. People get tired of me saying this, but I've been at the airport longer on the business side than anybody else here, whether it's the tower, the terminal, whatever. And I was going to be totally honest.

I'm really disappointed in your hotels and restaurants and whatnot. Shame on them for not contributing towards this. I just I don't understand it at all. Maybe because they're down this year because of Give me a break. Canadian tourism. I'm just guessing. Yeah. They always talk about, oh, you know, we bring all this money in that BV whatever it is tax thing, right? But that's a tax that's added on. It's not really coming out of their pocket, right? Right.

They they kicked in some money and you know Yeah. Yeah. Do they have It's a poor statement on that organization. I'm just going to say that. Do they have a strong association? They have Yes, they do. Yes. I mean, tourism is our industry here. How can you not How can you not support it? Yeah. I'd be curious about outreach for all of that. Oh, it it happened. I sat down a lot of uh had a lot of coffee dates. Um Orville and I when we sat down, I shared kind of did the whole outline.

I did this bill with a lot of um organizations. It is a shorter um it's a time frame issue too where it's only you have six weeks which business days that's not always available. Um, and so I certainly think that we it was hard for us to get ahead of it too because it's like where we weren't sure if it was going to open, but we do need a little bit of grace because we are a very small team as you know uh and we can only reach out to so many.

Orville um was very helpful getting us with the associations as well as Nackard actually um shared some of their contacts too um because I know certainly when you reach out to the general managers they have a higher level of that they have to go through on corporate um so we certainly it was it's a big load to get everything and in the past we've had $80,000 uh and so to be able to have almost $360,000 is huge. huge. Um, so I feel pretty proud of what we've come up with.

Um, but we certainly did reach out to everyone that we could and we're very well. I mean, I've lived here for more than 20 years integrated into the community. Uh, so we do have those contacts that help us. Um, and I've been working with a few hotels, uh, making accommodations for some air consultants that are coming, some stuff for next week.

Um, and they've certainly been generous on reduced rates and I even found a hotel that's very supportive and it's just making us cover the like taxes and fees. Um, but we did not find anyone that was willing to contribute money. I mean, even if that's I'm surprised about NA being on that list. So, they provided a letter of support and we can certainly have a bigger conversation. Um, in a letter of support again, we got 23 of them. Everyone submitted a letter of support.

Uh, but I had a very template email that was like, "We're looking for community. We'd like a letter of support." You follow up five times, you call three times. Uh, you shoot them two text messages. You let them know the deadlights approaching. And a lot of people say that they'll do it. And then when it comes down to it, uh, they kind of go silent.

So, we really had to focus our energy on, as well as writing a 20page application on why we are the best case to make a northern and eastern connection with new service. Um we've never we've only had one letter of support to have two letter of supports from airline is huge. Um in our Delta and we're not going to publicly share that information. Uh but we can certainly talk offline once the applications become uh the recipients are named all that information will come out.

Um but we to also to get letters from airports is huge. Our consulting firm that we worked with has never seen a letter of support for an airport. and to be able to get two letters of supports from the CEO of both airports saying that it's a strong business case stating the ties um is also very good. So, we're confident we're going to pop some apple cider with Orville when we get the recipients there. Chair, can I add a few other notes to that? Uh so, a couple things on the contributions.

Orville did allude to this, but Discover Flagstaff, the funding that they were able to provide for that direct cash match was through the BBB funds that come through the visitors that go to those hotels and restaurants. So, we're very grateful for that contribution from that organization. Right. Um, additionally, uh, just a reminder about how this this funding will be used.

So, the $800,000 that we would ask for in the grant and the additional community contributions are intended to help start up air service for it to then be sustainable in the long run on its own. Right? Right? So, initial startup costs are high and there's some uncertainty in the market. The idea is to try to lessen that barrier of entry for a new air carrier.

Uh, so it's generally a three-year period that would be allocated over and it's usually there's a specific agreement that'll be done that has to be approved by the DOT every time. Usually those funds are dispersed only if there is unmet revenue on certain seats. So like if they say they have a 50 seat airplane and they are only able to sell 30, they can submit and say we'd like to pull some additional revenue from this pot of money to cover the cost of that flight.

So they can add flights at different times and try them and see what's working and what's not. What kind of frequency works, what days of the week do they want to add it. It gives them a little bit more room to experiment to get the route a new route into a successful place before that grant funding is expired.

And the reason that's important for us is that if you look at the revenue that the airport generates, as council member Matthews alluded to earlier, we'd really like to get to the point of being a true enterprise fund that we're not there yet. Our number one revenue source is actually our rental cars, our number two is our parking, right? And both of those are directly tied to the number of people who fly in here, right?

So, if we increase the number of people that are traveling through Flagstaff, those are good, excuse me, going to hit a lot of our our our biggest dollar amounts in terms of airport revenue. There's, of course, other things, too. landing fees, terminal rent, concession sales in the building, and then the indirect economic impact of those passengers coming to Flagstaff.

So, ADAT's actually doing a new economic impact study, which at some point in the next six months to year, we hope to be able to share that shows what kind of economic impact the airport itself brings to the community of Flagstaff outside of direct airport revenue. Do you have a gut feeling that that'll say it's our impact is increasing? That's a good question. The previous one was done in 2021 when we did have two carriers, right? Right.

So that's kind of the big question is American has increased their footprint here since then. Obviously United was here at the time and has since departed. Although that was also coming on the heels of COVID. So it's a very strange time. The data they were looking at for the previous couple years and I think a lot of it's going to depend on the methodology.

But as as we've seen from Orville's number the fleet mix has changed the visitation we're getting through other aspects of the airport right through things like uh visitors coming in on private jets or charter flights and also we've seen an increase in even our medevac community. So, previously Guardian had one helicopter base here. Now they have two. So that there's more people, right? That's more mechanics, that's more maintenance, more fuel, it's more jobs, um, more capacity, right?

So I think I'll be very curious to see what it says. I I generally believe we're moving in a upward direction. The big question mark is what impact the departure of United had uh, in 2022. And we'll see how that's reflected. They're going to take that data. I have a question for you. Um, the parking lot was pretty full when I got here. So, um, what are your thoughts about when we when we do bring in another airline? Like, how is that going to impact our parking? Yeah.

Uh, thank you, Council Member Matthews. It's a great question. Um, prior to uh, United's departure, we didn't have two parking lots. So, when United was here previously, we were operating on just the terminal parking lot. And that's when everybody was parking in the landscaping and along the street and in the forest and hitching rides and double parking every day. Yeah. Okay. So, we've more than doubled our parking capacity since then.

Uh, and while we have exceeded the capacity of our original terminal parking lot on holidays and busy travel weekends, the highest we've gotten is about 60% capacity. So, we have about 40% room for growth on parking before we need to to start worrying about that too much. So, I think we're going to be in good shape for an additional carrier.

Uh, if we look at where we were previously when United was here at our number of employments, I think our highest year was about 120,000 compared to the 80,000 we had this past year. Uh we should even with that have additional capacity. Great. And when did you think I'm sorry I missed when when are we going to know? It's typically five months.

There's been a rumblings that we'll hear that they're trying really hard because it has been delayed almost two years that they're trying really hard by July. Um but I don't want to hold that. Yeah. But that would be uh that's a lot. There's a lot of applicants. Uh that would be remarkably fast. It would be remarkably fast. It's usually five months and it's competitive. So who are we? So you said federal. It's not a I thought all this time it was state grant.

It's done through the department of transportation. That's a lot competition. Do they have a silver secretary? I'm sorry. But Clar, what did you say? You said the highest I don't know if you can share this, but the highest match you had seen was 44.3 and we're at 44.8. Yeah. So, this is like the highest match and our original ask was going to be $700,000. Um, and then Ora and then Oracle gave us $100,000 and we were able pushed us over to get us to that $800,000.

We went back and forth kind of internally and with our consultant. Uh but that's people ask for varying amounts. You see like 1.5 to I think the lowest is like 300,000. Um and when our debrief they said ask for what you need. Uh and we would take whatever we need. Uh so we went back to that 800,000 number and felt really comfortable about that. Well, I hope all your hard work pays off in spades. Thank you. We're hopeful. But we'll keep you.

So, you may or may not be aware that next Thursday on May 21st, we will be welcoming Flagstaff's first mainline aircraft ever uh for commercial service. CRJ's is the largest that we've had. Um so excited. Um we will be having um a party in the terminal um as well as after the plane takes or at 12:30. So, the plane comes in at 11:45. Um, and then it will depart at 12:35. Um, Orville is generously hosting a barbecue that you all have been invited to.

Um, that will start at 12:30, but the plane will depart at 12:35. You can view it from the hanger. Um, so please let me know if you plan on attending um so we can post quorum if we need to. And again, that uh flight will depart at 12:35. Um if you don't make it though, we have photographers, plane spotters, everyone um lined up. News media. News media. So we'll certainly if you can't make it, we'll have some great pictures for you. Sign a little fly fly over. If only I will.

So we have some goodies. I was talking about Tom. Some new hats. that boarding pass will actually have some giant boarding passes so people can take pictures with them. Uh but then we'll have that version as like a size for boarding pass for stickers. Um we'll put some gifts on the baggage carousel so when the arriving flight comes in uh they'll be able to get some special goodies and then we'll certainly have people and yeah screwdrivers just get them through TSA. Probably go.

And is this coming from Dallas? It is. Okay. Um and actually so um the advanced bookings have far exceeded our expectations. Um as of Monday afternoon the plane was more than 92% full. The arrival flight had nine seats left. The departing flight had 10 seats left. U but talking to American they would not be shocked. I mean that's still more than a week out um if that plane was completely full. Wow.

So, on that note, um we're working with a consultant that's able to provide us with some numbers that we haven't previously had. So, looking at growth airport-wise, um year-over-year, so capacity growth is seats available. Um so, for May, we're up 12%, June, we're up 21%, in July, we're up 25%. The industry average year after year is 2%. Um so, those numbers are very high.

And then we actually just got an email in a few minutes ago um with our DFW load factor for February was 89% which is up 19% from last year. Um and that puts us in the top 10 markets for all of DFW. So wow that's impressive. American is certainly um kudos to American because they're paying attention and seeing what we need to do. Phoenix ran at 69% load factor which is up 25% year-over-year. Uh when it that had we had 28 less 28% less capacity.

Um but that means that the American team is getting it right um and leveling out the capacity. So we even though we had less capacity we were still up more. Um, so those airlines really look at the numbers and I think it's not just for American. Other airlines have access to these numbers. And in our next slide, uh, the airlines that we're meeting with, um, Brian and I will be meeting with American Sky West, Jet Sweetex United in Alaska, um, in early June.

Um, and we're certainly getting noticed, uh, by other airlines and they can see our success. Uh, so we're excited to also be able to share this story with them as well. We're not meeting with Brent. We're not meeting with Spirit. Uh, and you'll see that in the past we've had a few more meetings. Uh, but we feel really confident about these meetings because we've met with Southwest in the past at these, but we're not that would be a large claim for us to fill.

Um, so we're really kind of targeting down on who our next um, airline would be. Uh, JSX is a private charter, so that would actually be an FBO operation um, out of Orville's office. And then as you know, Sky West flies for multiple carriers. Um so we'll report back I guess at our next commission meeting because we go in early June. Um and we have um I'm excited to I just went over our slides uh yesterday.

So I'm really excited with the numbers that we have provided available and to tell our story with like our growth and the possibility um at the destinations that we're asking for is really exciting. Question. Um Oh, go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you think that with Allegiance's new merger that they might be looking at? We requested them uh Sun Country and Allegent. Um I they've been at both of the last roundt conferences they've been at.

I think they're going to try to even staffing wise um kind of solidify what they have um and then focus on growth. Um, we met with Sun Country last year and we had more uh Minnesota ties that we thought that we knew about until we had that meeting. Uh, but I wouldn't expect of what's going on in the industry right now. Um, I think they're probably trying to get everything right and that was just approved yesterday.

Um, so I think it's certainly an opportunity that we can, but I think what I'm looking for and I think what would best serve our community is they're less than daily and seasonal service. I think we right now have one gate available and we could certainly welcome in a daily legacy carrier that would open up a larger network. Um, Sunount and Allegant are not huge networks. Um, they go to destinations.

are not kind of that hub and spoke model where if we were to have Alaska United um those would open up a lot more networks and a lot more open up the world to Flagstaff a bit more um than Allegian and some country would and I think Allegant just announced or some countries just announced that they're doing Cancun um so before that they were just within the US so I think we can focus our attention a little bit more and perhaps in the future when we get that huge terminal expansion in 15 years.

Maybe we could talk to 80 years old. Come on. I I was just at launch with Grant, my son. He works part-time for Allegian as a charter rep and we were talking a little bit because they just approved the merger yesterday and he was I'm not going to say it since this is all being recorded. Tell me a little bit what's going on. They got a lot to deal with right now. I think the last thing they're probably looking at is new service.

new service till they kind of figure out um because uh I think I can oh Allegian had x number of like charter I forget what he called it sun country had x number of this and they weren't exactly the same and so they're kind of trying to figure out how they're going to combine all this. Um I they figured it out but I'm just saying I think they got their plate pretty full right now. I still think they're a logical carrier in here to be honest. But yeah, chair, I have a question.

They are close, but they're Mesa base and that's not that far away. So unless they're blown up Montana or something. So two questions, Claire um or Brian on American Airlines with the larger plane, are the ticket prices different? That's a good question. I don't know that I have a direct answer to that. We might need to get back to you on that one. It's based on demand. So you can kind of see um as the flight as the schedule goes.

Uh but I wouldn't see any I wouldn't plan on any significant decrease or increase aircraft size. It's going to be more when we flew back from DC and I think we had a layover was it in Denver or so it was full flight. But so anyway, and my second question is um on the airline um coming in and I just forgot besides the ticket price. Oh.

Oh, when I went on the um to the conference two years ago, our consultant just amazed me with knowing the data of how many people from Flagstaff area, northern Arizona were flying out of Phoenix to these different hubs of these airlines. Um, do you happen to know or was does it kind of match with American how many people um from that data or were going down to Flagstaff to fly to Dallas?

I mean to Phoenix to fly to Dallas and does that match up with how full their plane is or does that make sense? Yeah, we so we have access to like you said quite a quite a lot of data these days, but I think it tends to be on the back end, right? So, we won't see the effect of the A319 until the data is released several months later. So, we're seeing that in the past rather than in the future. Okay.

Um because the airlines hold on to that pretty closely as kind of proprietary information for their business operations. So, we'll see later this year how the addition of the larger aircraft has affected the origin and destination cities of folks that are traveling to Flagstaff. Um, don't you think there's less incentive to like if you start going to places like Dallas and Denver, there's less incentive to drive to Phoenix because of the connectivity.

A lot of people, I don't want to have to go down to Phoenix only to change a plane and go wherever, right? Plus, you know, many, many years ago, one time, one year, um, I think it was Mesa at the time, the pilots timed out right before Christmas and all these holiday flights got cancelled up here and we had a lot of bleed from that down the feast because people, I'm never flying out Flagstaff again. This like 20 years ago, we aren't seeing any of that.

And let's just be honest, I mean, it's look how convenient it is. I mean, you go down to Sky Harbor or whatever. Right. When I'm in San Diego, sometimes my daughter flies in from Ohio, whatever. I'm like, "What a nightmare." Like, just trying to get up to the terminal and drop her off or get her. I mean, it's so convenient to fly out of here. When we flew back from DC, it was so nice because it's such a long wait to not have to drive.

But, um, I I know it's probably in the press release that came out, but I don't remember what it said. Um, how what's the frequency on that flight? Once a day. Every day. Once a day. March 21st to the end of October. And then it'll go back to the regional jets for the fall. Maybe. Sorry. Maybe. Maybe. And then in October, um, we will be having the 319 as well as a regional jet in the morning on the preliminary schedule.

The preliminary schedule, which is subject to change, but there may be more options. Then going back about ticket prices, um part of our application for the grant, um and you see a trend if there's another air service, another airline to choose, uh we could see a bit of a decline, uh in ticket prices. Sure. We're hoping so. Okay. Next. All right. Uh we have anformational item for you today for airport requirements for cranes and other structures.

So switching a little bit to a sort of a groundbased activity that affects our airspace. We'll keep it short. But question, this is something that sort of look in the background of what we do to try to protect the investment that the city and the federal government and the state have made in building an airport here by trying to protect the airspace around it. And so why do we airports care about structures and cranes and things like that built around them? Number one is of course safety, right?

People fly around airplanes don't need to be worrying about obstructions being in their way, right? Clear airspace all the way to the runway is our goal. And a part of that is also preservation of navigable airspace, right? Airspace is an asset. It's sort of like the highway in the sky that allows people and cargo and economic activity to get between places. So we made pretty significant investments. A lot of our country's logistics relies on that.

So we want to make sure that it's clear and operating safely. And then those are codified in regulatory compliance. Right? So that's the third piece of this is um there's there's two pretty major things that we look at from the airport perspective of why we have to look at this um legally. One is 14 title 14 of the code of federal regulations part 77 which has the uh somewhat lengthy title of safe efficient use and preservation of navigable airspace.

And then also for all the federal grants we received we signed these things called sponsor asurances. Right? It's a packet of basically things that we're obligated to comply with. One of them is uh essentially preserving the airspace around your airport. So where does it apply? And this is what I think surprises people often the most. Uh so there's a picture on the right. Uh it's sort of a a a section view, a cut through section view of what the airspace around airports look like.

Really an easy way to think of it is a football stadium that starts 150 ft above the runway and there's a flat plane about 150 ft above that and then at some point in the distance it goes out to call it the seats of the stadium and then off of the ends of the runways there's a big ramp almost like you're putting the ski jump off the end of that stadium. Right?

So we're kind of looking at on the lower left of that picture is the runway and that extends out in every direction from the airport with these longer ramps that go off on the approach and departure rings of the runway. Uh those are actually what we refer to as imaginary surfaces. So super creative word for these invisible surfaces in the sky around the airport. Uh and they are based on the runway elevation, right?

So if there's a hill in the way, if the terrain rises, you're much more likely to have an object penetrate one of those surfaces or get near it because the runway elevation stays the same. Um so but a size-wise at Flagstaff essentially our services extend from Pump House Wash way to the southwest along I7 all the way out to Don Park to the northeast. So really we have to track everything that's going on in a pretty large area for impacts to that. So who is responsible for this?

So it's actually kind of a mixed group. The Federal Aviation Administration uh sets those requirements but also reviews airspace impacts for proposed objects. So there's a application system that I'll go over briefly in a little bit. On the local side, airports and local governments are responsible in large part for the enforcement of that. Right? The FA is generally non enforcement oriented in that thing.

Uh in that case, there's some exceptions to that, but for the most part, that relies on local partners to review and enforce through local zoning and building ordinances things like height restrictions on buildings and cranes. And then also contractors and property owners have a a role to play too, right?

And that is mostly through sub uh submitting proposed development or proposed temporary objects for review to both the federal government through the FAA and to the city through building uh permit review processes. So what do we do to address proposed structures? So we have kind of a three-pronged approach to this. Number one is education. Uh we do that through a website that we've added onto our airport website. So thanks to Claire for developing this in your spare time.

Uh so we have a a shiny new web page called cranes and other structures. If we have time at the end of this and interest, I can show you the video uh that's embedded in that. It's a pretty cool video that the FAA's office put out that shows sort of how their end of the process goes. Um and then review. So applicants, we direct applicants to that FAA review process for any structures that are going to be built. Uh they have some criteria there.

They even have a little lookup tool where you can click on the space where you want to build something and tell them how tall it's going to be and they'll tell you if it needs to be submitted for evaluation or not. Um they send back findings and say whether it's going to be a hazard or not a hazard or there's kind of a sort of a hazard requirement where maybe you need to put some markings or flag, you know, like lighted beacons on it or flashing lights, things like that.

Um and then enforcement, right? and enforcement is through comments that we as the airport provide to the city building um or sorry the city uh planning staff and engineering staff and even sometimes the building safety team related to uh proposed development.

So they say hey we have this apartment complex coming in maybe it's kind of near the airport we want to see is the height of that going to be okay and we can sort of help them direct them to that process and make sure they're submitting it and if we see any concerns we can bring those up early on so they're addressed before it's too far down the road. So some of the tools we have towards that enforcement, one is navigation easements.

So that's an easement that a property owner can issue to an airport that basically says they acknowledge there's going to be aircraft over whatever their development is, whatever their property is, and they might see associated noise and things like that with it, but also that they won't um build anything that would exceed some of those surfaces that we were talking about. It' be a hazard to air navigation.

Um similarly in the city zoning code there's a section for um height limitations that prohibits structures and vegetation from entering the airport surfaces and actually directly references that graphic there along with the current version of our master plan at the time. So we do have those tools in our toolbox. Uh that map on the right shows the area where certain development triggers the need for navigation easement in the city of Flagstaff.

So there's a number of different things that trigger that. certain annexations or subdivision plat certain building permits also require that and we work with those teams to make sure those are codified at the real quick the the tech park is that are they having to go through that? Yeah, the tech park because it was a city ground lease included a bunch of it in their lease terms. Okay.

So, I believe that that is um already Yeah, some of that was a little bit before my time, but I know it was addressed in their lease and when they do get to the building permit stage, we will have a chance to see it again and make sure that they're also complying with it from a zoning code standpoint. Uh so that's kind of a very quick overview of stuff.

Um one of the reasons I bring this up is because uh we actually attended the Arizona Airports Association conference earlier this fall and this was a pretty big topic of conversation in the valley uh development, you know, in the Phoenix metro area, Phoenix's uh development is going very quickly and airports are seeing a pretty major issue with tower cranes, right? Contractors don't always do the right thing.

Sometimes an air traffic control tower will call up an airport operations team and say like, "Hey, somebody just put up a crane right off the end of the runway." and they've had to work with their local police departments to try to figure out how they can have those basically made safe very quickly and then direct them through that process. So, we knock on wood haven't had as much of an issue with that. Um, and so we're trying to be proactive to make sure we don't, right?

And but it is an issue that other airports, some of our peers elsewhere in the state are dealing with um some pretty significant challenges. Put up that big tall building right there. Well, the hospital is a great a great example. So the the proposed hospital development that ended up not um going through too high. Um it was sort of on the edge. We were providing a lot of comments about the max height for it. It was a pretty large building. It had a helellipad associated with it.

So um I don't know that they ever got far enough down. It seems like it was going to be okay. We were going to find a way to work it out. Though the development of that stopped before we really finalized those conversations, but it was one that we were pretty involved with in the development of that u leading up to um the sort of planning stages of that project. So it's like the dome and all that outside this ramp. Uh they would be within it but they're under it, right?

So it gets it's we're sort of helped by our terrain. Our runway elevation here is 7,14 ft. So we're one of the highest areas of the Flagstaff metro area, right? Um so it helps that everybody else is starting a little bit lower than us, right? That builds in some capacity for people to put, you know, the dome's been there since, see I want what late 70s or whatever and we extended 1,800 feet that way however many years ago. said, I obviously pushed all that out that way.

I was just curious if it had to be grandfathered or something. Yeah, good question. I I believe they're below the services in question, so I don't think it was ever quite an issue. And then does this just temporary structures or does this also fall like someone else put up a radio tower or something like that? All the above. Yeah. So, it's a similar process for both. The review process for temporary structures tends to go a little quicker than for permanent structures.

Um, and it's primarily done through that FAA process versus through the building code when it comes to those temporary structures. But yeah, it applies to everything, including trees. So, sometimes we'll get a call from the FAA that they run an analysis. They use this LAR tool to figure out if any trees in the forest are too tall for our approach path.

We're actually dealing with a couple right now trying to work with the forest on figuring out if they can remove them because they're sort of encroaching on some of the the FAA services. It's a it's a limited problem. Luckily, because of our terrain here, it's it's not much of an issue very many places. Hey, any other questions? Thanks. Yes, I have a that just was brought to our attention to and from commissioners.

Uh Brian and I will be traveling back on the 11th, which is the next commission meeting. Oh, back from the airline meetings. Yes. So, we could propose to cancel the meeting. Uh or we could move it to the 18th of June. Well, you guys are just going to be getting back, right? We we'll get back on the evening of the 11th. Uh that's why we could certainly move it a week. Uh staffing wise, I So the 11th was the would be our meeting day. Would be our meeting day.

Staffing wise, I can only speak for myself, but we have had a lot going on. I know that we would be grateful to have a month off and come back with July with a lot of exciting things, but we will certainly people uh we are available on the 18th if we want to keep um our moments up and going. I tell you what, I I imagine everybody's June schedule is crowded. Uh I'm going to propose that we go ahead and cancel and just wait for the July meeting.

Uh any objections from any of the commissioners on that? None heard. So we'll go ahead and cancel the June meeting and push it to July. Okay, sounds good. One more thing, too. Please, sorry. I while I'm talking, uh please shoot me an email um if you do plan on attending um the barbecue on the 21st. We would love to see you and the celebration in the terminal. And the celebration in the terminal.

Uh if you do plan on the celebration of the terminal, that wasn't really included because the celebration part will mostly be in the hold room. Um so you won't be able to access that much of it. So we would encourage you to just attend the barbecue and we will uh be have all the goodies and everything. Uh you're more than welcome to bring a plus one or plus two uh but just send me an email um so we can plan accordingly if we know quorumwise and we certainly hope to see you.

You will not be able to access the celebration from the terminal. You must park at Wiseman Aviation um because you won't be able to get out. Uh so please come and please park at Wiseman Aviation. Or there's an address an address on the invitation that you could put into your phone. Well, I checked it out the other day, but I ended up in the wrong but my address is this has always been a pain. My address is on Chamrel, but you access me off Grumman. Okay.

But Grumman is an airport road and Chamrel is a city road. So Grumin isn't technically like an address, I guess. So yeah, I have one question. Where is the extension of JD Pow going to go? Is it going to go along down there where behind the Forest Service and where all the gravel is piled up? We might have to if that wasn't agenda, we might have to okay bring that up in a future one. Uh we can I can share some stuff with you offline or we can add that to a future agenda as well.

Just kind of I was kind of curious about that because I like sitting on the veterans bench up there and I was like, "Oh, that looks like a natural role." That's a good question. We've actually done some work on that. We've been coordinating with the FAA and the capital engineering team of the city to make sure that they're doing their due diligence on, you know, making sure that it's safe to go where they're planning to put it. So, we can we have some stuff we can share on that. Yeah.

And I trust in the traffic engineers in the Flagstaff area. They're doing great. Uh I'm not I'm not a commissioner, but I would like at some point I was thinking about we were talking about get an update. Maybe get somebody come to tell us what's going on in the uh parcel. We've uh been tracking that and they don't have anything they can share publicly yet. As soon as they do, we will uh welcome them to come in and say that, but so far there's nothing that's available to share.

The the technical tech the tech the Chinese never happened. I hear it's uh moved along pretty well. Anybody uh any commissioners any comments, questions, future item requests? That was one. Okay. All right. So, with that, uh, how about a motion to adjurnn? This is Commissioner Sha. So, motion to adjurnn. Second. Seconded. Okay. With that, all in favor? I. None opposed. And we'll call it at 14:24. Thank you everyone. Thank you all. Thank you. 10.