Hangar Leases at Local Government Owned Airports

[poteroo]

I'm interested in the terms of hangar leases at airports around Australia. Many leases are now close to expiry, and some airport owners are reportedly not offering lesees a rollover of their existing leases. Rather, discussions with owners seem to point to these options:

 

(1) sign a new lease for a much shorter period

 

(2) as for (1), but at a substantially higher lease rate

 

(3) if they object to (1) and (2) - the site will be offered out to the highest tender, and the incumbent can pack up their hangar and begone.

 

Lets hear what you know of this,

 

happy days,

 

 

[Guest airsick]

I don't know this first hand but I have heard rumours that in Canberra none of the GA hangars will even exist once the leases expire. Apparently Snow wants build, you guessed it, more offices.

 

May as well rename the place Canberra office park, change the runways into a parking lot and be done with it.

 

 

[pylon500]

The original question is aimed at 'Local Government Owned Airports', the worry is that they (Local Government, Council etc) could be looking at what's happening to many of the sold off airports, now in the hands of 'Business for Profit' private companies.

 

Although this ABC report is two years old, it reflects an ongoing problem at Bankstown Airport and many others.

 

Even poor old Dick Smith has a bit of a bitch about hangar pricing, and other services (is that servicing as in what a bull does to a cow?, bend over Dick! :yuk:), but again a two year old report.

 

The main problem seems to be that business bean counters can't come to grips with the idea that a piece of ground can't always be expected to generate the same type of income, regardless of it's location.

 

ie; 'Farm land cannot equal Office land, cannot equal Airport land for profitability'

 

Bankstown recently lost two taxiways and a run up bay to Big business and about three years ago lost an entire runway!

 

Arthur.

 

 

[poteroo]

Our airport offered 20 year leases on hangars as they were constructed during the 90's, and all of the lease agreements contained a 20 + 20 extension clause. Some of the original leases are due for re-negotiation in 2010 - but the 'owners' now claim that they have legal opinion that the rollover clause was unlawful, and so, they do not need to honour this part of the lease contract!!

 

(our WA legal fraternity were able to defend WA INC with a straight face...so the 'opinion' bit is no surprise!!)

 

Now we have the situation where several lease 'sales', or more accurately, assignments, are in limbo because of the lack of certainty in retaining future use of the hangar site.

 

There are some 20 people wanting to build hangars here, but because of the attitude of the airport owner, they are reconsidering. Several leases could be 'sold', but due to the uncertainty, nobody is prepared to move. There is already a move toward building an 'airpark' type development several miles away.

 

What is more distrurbing is that our 'owner' has recently crystallised losses in the US financial debacle of.....$2.3m! This on top of significant losses only a couple years back in another failed investment.

 

Guess where the rates and charges are heading here? Northwards is a fair guess!

 

It seems that local government has forgotten the notions of equity and public good which are clearly missing in their management of many airports. If you don't have parking fees downtown - then where's the equity in skyhigh airport lease and landing charges?

 

At least it's raining here, so we can't grizzle too much,

 

happy days,