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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022 02 28 BRAA Minutes of Regular Board Meeting - signed 1 | Page BARKLEY REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE AIRPORT BOARD OF DIRECTORS ON FEBRUARY 28, 2022 (1) Call to Order and Roll Call At 3:42 pm on February 28, 2022, the regular monthly meeting of the Airport Board of Directors was called to order by Jay Matheny, Chair of the Board. This meeting was held in person at Midwest Aviation after being properly advertised and noticed. A quorum of Directors was present throughout the meeting. Directors in Attendance: Jay Matheny, Board Chair; Emily Roark, Vice-Chair; John Durbin, Treasurer; Marshall Davis; George Cumbee; Jason Crockett; Dann Patterson; Ashley Johnson Directors Absent: Emmerson Goodwin, Jeff James Others in Attendance: Dennis Rouleau, Executive Director; Carol Switzer, Administrative Services/Terminal Manager; Haylie Hobbs, Marketing Manager; David Riley, Board Attorney; Casey Jones, CHA Companies, Mike Reiter, CMT; Destin Nygard, Alliiance Architects; and Harrison Earl, CMT. (2) Pledge of Allegiance (3) Assign Secretary Pro Tem The Board opened nominations for the position of Secretary Pro Tem for the minutes of the last meetings of the Board and the current meeting. This position will sign the minutes from these meetings. Marshall Davis nominated Jason Crockett for the post, and Emily Roark seconded his nomination. By unanimous voice acclamation, the Board appointed Director Crockett as Secretary Pro Tem without opposition. Motion by Ashley Johnson, seconded by Emily Roark, to appoint and assign Jason Crockett to serve as secretary pro tem until Emmerson Goodwin can return and resume the position. By unanimous voice acclamation, the Board appointed Director Crockett as Secretary Pro Tem without opposition. (4) Approval of Board Minutes (a) January 28, 2022, Regular Board Meeting Minutes After reviewing the minutes, there was a motion to approve the Minutes of January 28, 2022, Regular Meeting by Director Crockett, second by Director Durbin. By unanimous voice acclamation, the Board approved those Minutes without opposition. (5) Committee Reports (a) Ad-Hoc Terminal Art Committee 2 | Page The Ad-Hoc Terminal Art Committee met on February 28, 2022, at 2:00 pm via Zoom and before the Board's full meeting. The chair of the committee is Director Dann Patterson. Members of the committee are Paul Aho, Director of the Paducah School of Art & Design, Basil Drossos (former BRAA director), Phyllis Clymer, Cindy Ragland, and Director Emily Roark. Destin Nygard was also present at the meeting to advise the committee. The airport architects will provide committee members drawings with appropriate dimensions so that potential artists can know the dimensions of the spaces to be filled by these projects. The committee also discussed whether there should be rotating or permanent art installations in the new terminal. The committee's initial thought was to have a mixture of both. The larger architectural pieces would likely be permanent, with small spaces showcasing rotating exhibits. Alliiance recommended using a consultant for the placements of art and other matters within the new terminal. This consultant has prior experience in this area, including work/consultation at the Airport in St. Louis. She is willing to travel to Paducah to meet with the committee, but the cost of doing so and any consultation provided will likely be paid out of the budget for artwork in the new terminal. Whether to retain this consultant will ultimately be up to the entire Board. The next meeting of this committee will be on Friday, March 11, at 3:30 at the Paducah School of Art and Design. (6) Approval of Items within the Consent Agenda Following an opportunity to remove any items from the Consent Agenda for further discussion, Director Durbin made a Motion, seconded by Director Roark, to approve the Consent Agenda. By unanimous voice acclamation, the Board approved the Consent Agenda without opposition. (7) Consideration of Items Removed from Consent Agenda (if any) - None (8) Approval of January 2022 Financial and Statistical Reports The Executive Director presented these reports to the Board. These Minutes reflect the highlights of the Executive Director's presentation but do not capture exact details of every matter discussed. The items reviewed, including financial information, were presented to the Board through graphs, charts, financial reports, and other analyses. Passenger traffic was lower than expected in January 2022 but still trying to recover. The recovery of flights and passenger traffic over the next year will be challenging due to pilot and labor shortages. United Airlines is hiring pilots from Skywest, which offers a $40,000 bonus to its pilots to remain. Since Skywest services the Airport, the Airport will be directly affected by any pilots shortages experienced by Skywest. The Airport's April schedule will be a challenge because its flights will link to Cape Girardeau once again. This was challenging when it was last done in 2019. Skywest has dropped some EAS airports, which did not include Paducah. However, Skywest will reduce flights from 14 to 12 roundtrip flights per week at Paducah. Parking lot revenues were down compared to some prior years. Some individuals are "tailgating" other individuals out of the parking lot to avoid paying. The new terminal will have a camera and license plate reader that should prevent this conduct. Car rental is up significantly, probably attributable to the tornado in Mayfield in December 2021. Long- term rentals are being seen from car insurance rentals and FEMA officials. 3 | Page Overall air traffic at the Airport is up year-over-year. Sales of AvGas are up, and JetA sales were the best number seen in January in recent memory, likely because of air traffic generated as a result of the tornado. $250,000 remains in second stimulus package; roughly $1 million is available in third package. This money is for operating expenses. There were some questions from various Directors about revenues and expenses of the Authority (particularly professional services, FBO land leases, and IT expenses). Those were discussed with the Executive Director and various staff and appear to have been resolved to the Board's satisfaction. Financial statistics were reviewed on both a month-to-month basis and year over year. Having received the Executive Director's report of the January 2022 Financial and Statistical Report, Director Cumbee made a motion, seconded by Director Crockett, to accept that report. By unanimous voice acclamation the Board approved the Executive Director's report without opposition. (9) Executive Director Report The Executive Director presented to the Board, and the Board had some discussion, on the following items. Any actions taken by the Board are noted under the specific items. (a) Air Service Development Conference The Executive Director attended an Air Service Development conference with Paducah Mayor George Bray and Harrison Earl. The Board heard a report from this conference, Generally, the participants had meetings and/or informal discussions with American, United, Cape Air, Boutique Airlines, and others. Overall mood of the conference was pessimistic because of staff challenges for pilots in regional carriers. The participants wre able to introduce Barkley and Paducah to many airlines. This was "airline speed dating," and was an introduction to a conversation that will continue to build the relationships. The Executive Director reported they specifically talked to Allegiant Airlines, Breeze Airlines, and Condor airlines. Their conversation with American Airlines was good. The Executive Director did not have a good feeling from meeting with Boutique Airlines. Skywest has filed for the first time in possibly 10 years to exit EAS markets. At present, the consistency previously expected from Skywest is missing in the market but is anticipated to stabilize toward the end of the year. The Executive Director doesn't expect another airline to committee to service the Airport in the current environment. Meetings and discussions at conference met expectations, which were low going into it. The participants informed many airlines about the upcoming EAS renewal. The participants met with American Airlines to explore adding Charlotte as an option. Right now, all of American EAS carriers and coverage comes out of Dallas. Therefore, to add American as an EAS carrier, American would have to make some major route adjustments. While this is a possibility, it isn't expected in the near term. Going forward, the Airport will continue on two tracks. Under track one, the Airport will maintain the best EAS carrier possible. This will involve working with Skywest (through the end of 2023) to maintain the EAS. The Airport will work to have a competitive bidding process for next round of EAS. Under track two, the Airport will continue its efforts to attract carriers outside of the EAS process. Many carriers, like Allegiant, have historically worked alongside EAS. Long term, airports strive to "flunk out" of the EAS because they are self-sufficient. This isn't likely for the Airport for the next couple of years. 4 | Page For any non-EAS air service, the Airport needs money to support effort to bring another airline here; that's where the BBSA (Barkley Blue Sky Alliance, the charitable foundation affiliated with the Airport) can support the effort, disconnected from the Airport, to provide this support. The Airport is anticipated to need $2-3million per year to provide guarantee to roll out new service carrier. Another Air Service development conference, Reno in June 13-16, 2022. (b) Terminal Update The core of the bathrooms and the masonry walls around the building are beginning. The Board heard from Destin Nygard regarding potential charge orders. The Board will need special meeting to discuss this. Three change orders and two contracts will need to be approved. The contracts involve baggage handling and the passenger boarding bridge. The change orders involve door frames and supply change issues, electrical work and bridging between civil and terminal package, and structural change items. A special meeting was set for March 10 at 3:30pm via Zoom to address these issues. (c) Frankfort Update In the current legislative session, there are lots of moving parts regarding funding. Governor has $6 million in budget for terminal. There appears to be a behind the scenes effort to reduce the budget amount but to make up for it by providing a portion of the jet fuel tax. This would be divided among state airports; would potentially provide $500,000 a year toward operations; this is uncertain and is being discussed. The Executive Director provided list of items to various state officials that the Airport could use money for (like fuel rehab runway rehab, rehab of Midwest building). The Executive Director was asked to prioritize these by economic importance and impact. The Legislature is also discussing setting aside money for WKCTCS for aviation support program, which would be housed at the Airport. (d) Begin Airport Budget Process Director John Durbin said it might be too early to undertake and this items was delayed. (e) Midwest Aviation (i) Roof Project (ii) Inside Hangar Inspection Engineering inspection of the hangar found a lot of lose bolts in representative section. As a result, the Executive Director ordered inspection of entire hangar. This revealed areas where bolt heads were completely sheared off and many were loose. This effort resulted in a significant number of bolts being tightened. Mike Reiter reported on tightening efforts. Some bolts were only finger tight, and Bacon Farmer Workman used impact wrench to tighten the roof. BFW was surprised at how many bolts were only loosely connected. The Airport was fortunate there wasn't an issue before with bolt coming lose and striking aircraft or causing damage to other items. BFW is now finished and also did 6 panel doors. 5 | Page (f) FAA Projects Mike Reiter reported on the airfield marking project to address some of the concerns raised by the FAA certification inspector identified during last inspection. (g) Operations The Executive Director reported that winter has not been favorable to Airport operations with two ice events (ice is the worst thing to deal with for an airport; hard to remove, treat, and prevent); spent considerable money to restore Airport; had to rely on the county to help out when had certain breakdowns; main focus was getting evening Skywest flight into the Airport; had some window of opportunity and were able to make that happen. (h) Marketing – From Haylie Hobbs The Airport is currently running advertisements on/in WPSD, Posh Magazine, and Bristol Broadcasting. Haylie will be working with Advance Aviation to facilitate advertising (connected through Skywest). The goal is to improve Airport image in light of an anticipate less-than-ideal flight schedule. (10) Old Business There was no old business to discuss or presented at the meeting. (11) New Business (a) Ratify the expansion of the ad hoc art committee from four to six members. The Ad Hoc Art Committee received input by the Paducah Mayor and McCracken Judge Executive about expanding the size of the committee. Motion by Director Crockett, seconded by Director Cumbee, to expand and cap committee membership at the six members identified above in these minutes. By unanimous voice acclamation, the motion passed without opposition. (b) Yearly Board Member Orientation. Given time constraints, no orientation occurred and will be scheduled for a later meeting. (12) Executive Session Pursuant to KRS 610.810(1)(c) and (f), the Board entered into Executive Session (motion by Director Patterson, seconded by Durbin, and passed by unanimous voice acclamation without opposition. No action was taken in executive session. Motion by Director Davis, seconded by Director Crockett, and passed by unanimous voice acclamation without opposition, to exit executive session. 6 | Page (13) Adjournment Motion by Director Crockett; seconded by Director Roark; by unanimous voice acclamation the motion passed without opposition and the meeting was adjourned at 6:06pm. Jackie “Jay” Matheny Date Chair Jason Crockett Date Secretary Pro Tem Jackie M. "Jay" Matheny, Jr. (Apr 5, 2022 07:21 EDT) Apr 5, 2022 Jason Crockett (Apr 5, 2022 08:04 CDT) Jason Crockett Apr 5, 2022