Business View Magazine - October 2018

118 119 St. Louis, it’s really a worldwide asset that people from all over the world come to. Our competition is more like Heathrow or like Dubai. It’s not nec- essarily the Kansas City Downtown Airport. It’s not necessarily the St. Louis Regional Airport or any- thing nearby. How the Airport differentiates itself is how do we provide services to those people who are known as world travelers and what can we give to them that they would expect?” The presence of name-brand FBOs and MROs contributes to the Airport’s allure. “A lot of people come to the Airport because we have a Jet Avia- tion FBO,” says Dahl. “A lot of people come to the Airport because we have Ideal Aviation. A lot of people come because we have Gulfstream. It’s about making sure people know that we have those businesses here at the airfield and making it easy for people to come to those businesses.” Going forward, Dahl and St. Louis Downtown Airport’s management are focusing on what the air travel of tomorrow will be. “We have to talk about more generalities such as what does avia- tion look like in the future; what does the prolif- eration of drones look like; what does personal PREFERRED VENDORS n Hanson Professional Services Inc. www.hanson-inc.com Hanson Professional Services Inc. is a national, award-winning, employee-owned consulting firm providing engineering, planning and allied services. Established in 1954, Hanson has offices nationwide and serves clients across the U.S. and abroad. Hanson provides a hands-on approach and a complete range of airport engineering services to the aviation industry. n Gulfstream Aerospace www.gulfstream.com ST. LOUIS DOWNTOWN AIRPORT flight look like; is there going to be something like a personal Uber that you can get a plane from?” Dahl proffers. “Those are the questions that we necessarily can’t address, but we need to make sure that we stay fluid and dynamic so that if those things become more prevalent, we have a way of accommodating them.”