Business View Magazine - Nov 2023

311 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 “It’s something that, when I look at my budget, I try to battle,” he says, “because you try to base your budget based on the prior years. When you look at my budget for this year, compared to last year, my fuel sales on the avgas (aviation gasoline) side have dropped tremendously. That pushes me to accept that reality and pay attention to other line items in my budget to make sure that I’m saving in other areas, trying to make up for the reduction in avgas sales.” He continues that the end of the flying season (at least in the colder Northern states) is now fast approaching. “In my part of the world, in December, January, and February, there isn’t a whole lot of flying going on,” he reveals, “so hopefully, we can get a little bit of a break with avgas pricing in the fall because a lot of people like to fly in the fall.” “It would be nice to get a nice little bump at the end of the year, but I think I have to temper expectations and realize between when I did my budget last year and when I did my budget here recently that I can’t count on avgas sales being what they used to be. I’ve accepted that and tried to consider that and then try to adjust other parts of the budget to at least make up for some of that. We can’t make it all up. But we’re going to do our best to mitigate the pain.” Then there’s the generation gap. Today’s young people simply don’t have the interest in aviation that their parents and grandparents did, as Buchna opines. This, too, could be a factor in the nationwide pilot shortage. “As they get older,” he says, “we start losing a lot of that general aviation traffic, and we just don’t have the pipeline of young, interested aviators that want to have their planes and fly for joy and not business.” Real advantages There are definite advantages to having a county- owned airport. In the case of Venango Regional, which is owned by Venango County, one advantage is an on-site community recycling center. The VENANGO REGIONAL AI RPORT County has revitalized and repurposed this site on airport property proper, as Buchna reveals. “Every part of my operation involves the County,” he says. Fuel sales, hangar rentals, and those kinds of things provide the match required for the projects that we do, but the County still contributes a fair amount to our budget to operate the airport overall.” Buchna also cited further improvements that may come in the future. Among these potential actions are HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) upgrades for the terminal building. Plus, in that same area of the airport, there could soon be a new parking lot for the general public. It all hinges on pending County approval, of course, as Buchna emphasizes. “The County has always been very supportive of the airport,” he says, “and if I come to them and say, ‘Hey, I need this,’ they get it. They’re willing to support us and always have been. I feel very lucky to have the backing of the county commissioners to be able to lend that support and financial