Airport Business

APR 2013

The airport professional's source for airport industry news, articles, events, and careers.

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business profle plethora of beach towns and artist colonies make it an attractive place to visit. The Three Arms of ACI While still in Redding, Borgsmiller knew he wanted to start a business and that he wanted to fly people around in airplanes. After a year he moved to San Luis Obispo to implement this plan. He set his plan in motion by acquiring one of the fuel vendors on the airport. Borgsmiller admits his partners helped him get started, and that partners are still part of ACI. The first leg of ACI's success was built on aircraft management services. The ACI aircraft management team sits down with each customer and if requested, can tailor each management package to the customer's needs. As the management roster grew it was a natural progression to begin offering the owners of managed airplanes the option of contracting with ACI has morphed from a fuel provider into a company with more than 70 employees built around three divisions. ACI to provide the services and oversight needed to safely charter their aircraft. According to Robillard, "What sets us apart from other companies is our boutique attitude toward our customers." The ACI charter team makes it a point to know what each customer wants to eat and drink, what they want to drive, where they want to stay and even, what kind of doggy treats Rover likes. Then they go to uncommon lengths to make sure the customer gets what they like. Today, the ACI charter fleet includes a King Air 350, a suite of five Citation Excels and Citation XLSs, a Citation X and a Gulfstream IVSP. Robillard says one reason for the success of charter ops at ACI is the location of the fleet — midway between large markets in both the San Francisco and Los Angeles population centers. Positioning hops to either of these markets are short; this combined with lower overhead costs and the diversified fleet provides the ACI advantage. In addition, the Central Coast is drawing businesses that depend on charter flights to streamline their business and personal travel needs. In addition to its San Luis Obispo facility, ACI also provides and maintains the self serve-fuel area at the beach-side Oceano airport (L57) and maintains a Jet Center in Paso Robles, another Central Coast destination. Although the Paso Robles airport is only 27 miles north of KSBP, the two airports are on opposite sides of a modest range of hills. KSBP, being only a few miles from the Pacific Ocean is more temperate — summertime temperatures rarely top 80 degrees Fahrenheit and winters are mild — but is often covered with marine fog in summer months; KPRB is shielded from summer fogs but is home to temperatures of more than 100 degrees F in the summer and often goes IFR due to morning fog and temperatures near or at freezing during the winter. An ACI brochure acknowledges this WX switcheroo by providing a "good weather guarantee," and promising to transfer services to either airport when weather concerns dictate a change of plan. ACI's Big New Maintenance Base ACI is pushing the fact that both the KSBP and the KPRB airports need to be considered when launching for flights to Hawaii and other Pacific Rim destinations. Each airport has a 6,000-foot runway, and ACI provides full services including 400Hz/28 VDC power, air-conditioning, detailing, April 2013 www.AviationPros.com 25

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