Tenants raise concerns about costs

Members of the general aviation community say fuel and hangar prices are too expensive at the Bern Township airfield

General aviation tenants of the Reading Regional Airport think fuel and hanger prices are too high at the airfield, making the Bern Township facility less attractive than nearby competitors.

Several tenants addressed the airport authority at its meeting Tuesday on behalf of members of the general aviation community — people who use the airfield for noncommercial uses.

Steve Kunkle, a representative of the tenant advisory committee, said the biggest topics of conversation among the community are the price of fuel and the inconsistent cost of hangar space.

“The prices have been overinflated here for years,” he said. “And because of that I have seen a decline in general aviation on the field. The prices are chasing people away.”

Kunkle said tenants had little recourse when the two privately-owned fixed base operators on the airfield controlled fuel prices and a great deal of hangar space. But the authority has purchased the assets of those two companies, and tenants were hoping their concerns would now be taken into consideration.

He said setting fuel prices at a more competitive rate and bringing stability to hangar prices would go a long way toward increasing traffic at the airport.

Fuel prices

One of the first issues general aviation tenants would like addressed is the price of fuel.

Steve Schory, a member of the Reading Aero Club, told authority members that he examined fuel prices during 2023 at area airports and found that other locations were less expensive. He said tenants saved an average of about 22 cents a gallon purchasing fuel at other airfields — despite receiving a 25-cent discount on fuel in Reading.

“I know people with aircraft on this field who almost never buy gas here,” he said. “If they find cheaper gas somewhere else they buy it there. So you have to think about how you’re not pumping as much gas as you could because they’re going to other places.”

Commissioner Christian Leinbach, chairman of the authority, pointed out that the authority only became the airport’s sole provider of fuel less than two months ago, so data from 2023 is no longer relevant. He said he needs to know how the price compares now that the authority is in charge.

Schory acknowledged that he didn’t have that information on hand but said he believes the current price is near the top of what pilots are seeing in the region. He said offering a lower price would be an economic boon for the airport.

“I guarantee you that if your price is cheaper people will come here to fill up whether they need it or not — that’s just the way pilots think,” he said.

Airport director Zackary Tempesco pushed back on the accusation that fuel is more expensive at Reading, noting that prices fluctuate on a weekly basis and that the current price is lower than its closest competitor in Lancaster County.

Leinbach proposed collecting information over the next few months, sharing that data with the fuel provider for Reading Aviation and figuring out where to go from there.

“This really is not different from automobile fuel in that there are certain entities that sell fuel as low as they possibly can because they can make money by getting people into the store,” he said. “That’s a strategic decision whether we want to be the low price provider. I’m not saying that we should or that we shouldn’t.

“But what we first need to do is establish solid data,” he continued. “We can’t be making decisions based on somebody telling us what the prices are here or there.”

Hangar costs

The other concern among general aviation tenants is the cost of leasing space in hangars once owned by the two previous FBOs. Kunkle said the prices are inconsistent from one lease to another and unreasonably expensive.

He said he knows of a situation in which two people are leasing space in the same hangar but one pays nearly $100 more a month in rent. That, he said, should never happen.

Kunkle said many tenants believed that when the authority took ownership of the hangars the prices would be reassessed to reflect a fair standard across the airfield. But he said they are running out of patience and losing faith that it will happen.

“A lot of people left years ago and it became a ghost town around here,” he said. “The ones that are still here were hoping that you guys would make it right.”

Tempesco reassured Kunkle that a change is coming on that front.

He said that over the next few months the authority will look at the average rent being paid by tenants and then create a common square-foot rate. The goal is to have the new rate implemented by October.

Leinbach said authority members communicated this goal to tenants during a meeting shortly before it took over operations at the airport, letting them know that their intent was not to make any immediate changes to lease agreements. Instead they were told the authority would be working to normalize a fair rate and adopt it later this year.

“We didn’t just want to all of a sudden make wholesale changes,” he said.

Tempesco added that the evidence doesn’t support the claim that the airport is underutilized. He said hangar demand remains high and that the hangars are essentially full, estimating that there are about 115 aircrafts based on the airfield.