Business View Magazine | October 2019

165 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 of the Indiana County Airport Authority, a board of nine Indiana County residents appointed by the County Board of Commissioners. “We’re almost self- sufficient,” Fuellner explains. “Our funds come from our fuel sales, our hangar rent, and from some gas wells on the property. And then the county funds my personnel, my insurances, and my vehicles - my basic operating costs.” Today, the Airport is home to 42 GA aircraft. Some years ago, it also supported a small charter service, and Fuellner says he would like to get something of that nature back again, in order to better compete with some nearby airfields. “These other airports have the small charter and commuter flights that go to the major hubs,” he notes. “One of our big competitors, just to the south, has Spirit Airlines. And although we’re not looking to get into that type of operation where you have a major carrier, something that would work for us would be a small puddle-jumper, like a Boutique Air, or Southeast Air, or some small, single-engine turbo-prop to get from this Airport to Pittsburgh or Washington, DC.” Another competitive challenge, according to Fuellner, is that a handful of the surrounding airports have larger runways that can support corporate operations. “That’s our biggest challenge – having the infrastructure here to support these bigger operations,” he opines. “We just recently lost our avionics shop and lost our mechanic’s facility, because both of those individuals retired, so that has had a huge effect on the traffic here. So, we’re working on trying to fill those two voids, and once that happens, we’ll be back in line with these other airports.” Meanwhile, Fuellner reports that the Airport has plans to expand its facilities. “I’m working closely with our Center for Economic Development in Indiana, and I have plans to build a large corporate-type hangar,” he relates. “The long-range plan is to build some corporate hangars to attract some corporate business, and also build a couple of smaller hangars to attract some more general aviation, but on a bigger scale.” “Our new flight school, Innovative Aviation, is THE INDI ANA COUNTY J IMMY STEWART A I RPORT