DRAFT MINUTES
| AIRPORT COMMISSION THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2025 |
FLAGSTAFF AIRPORT 6200 S. PULLIAM DRIVE AIRPORT CONFERENCE ROOM 1:00 P.M. |
1.
CALL TO ORDER
Meeting called to order at 1:02PM.
2.
ROLL CALL
City Staff: Lori Matthews, Council Member; Heidi Hansen, Economic Vitality Director; Brian Gall, Airport Director; Adam Miele, Programs Manager; Claire Harper, Airport Communications Manager; Tim Skinner, ARFF/Ops Manager; Miciela Sahner, Adminstratrive Specialist/Recording Secretary
| NOTE: One or more Commission Members may be in attendance telephonically or by other technological means. |
| THOMAS WADDELL, CHAIR, Present NICHOLAS BARRAZA, Present late at 1:06 PM ROBERT CARPENTER, Present |
ROBERT HANOVICH, Present ANDREW SHOUSE, Present KOLBY WHITE, Present late at 1:04 PM |
City Staff: Lori Matthews, Council Member; Heidi Hansen, Economic Vitality Director; Brian Gall, Airport Director; Adam Miele, Programs Manager; Claire Harper, Airport Communications Manager; Tim Skinner, ARFF/Ops Manager; Miciela Sahner, Adminstratrive Specialist/Recording Secretary
3.
PRELIMINARY BUSINESS
A.
Public Comment/Participation/Input
Items presented during the Public Participation/Input portion of the agenda cannot be acted upon by the Commission. Individual members of the Commission may ask questions of the public but are prohibited by the Open Meeting Law from discussion or considering the item among themselves until the item has been officially placed on the agenda.
Items presented during the Public Participation/Input portion of the agenda cannot be acted upon by the Commission. Individual members of the Commission may ask questions of the public but are prohibited by the Open Meeting Law from discussion or considering the item among themselves until the item has been officially placed on the agenda.
Steve Allen has been a tenant at the airport since 1976. He came in due to the conversation of badging fees that was presented at last month’s meeting. Steve expressed concern over the cost of the badges, feeling that this cost should be issued it when you pay your rent for the aircraft storage unit.
A second comment was added about the long hangar list, noting that he believes there are two (2) current vacancies.
Staff has taken notes of the comments and notes that they are working on filling in vacancies.
A second comment was added about the long hangar list, noting that he believes there are two (2) current vacancies.
Staff has taken notes of the comments and notes that they are working on filling in vacancies.
B.
Announcements
Reconsiderations, Changes to the Agenda, and other Preliminary Announcements.
Reconsiderations, Changes to the Agenda, and other Preliminary Announcements.
Staff has met with the Deputy City Clerk recently, during discussions staff has decided that going forward we will give commissioners 10 minutes past our scheduled start time to join before we cancel a meeting if quorum is not met. This should be enough time for members to join into the meeting while still being respectful of everyone’s time.
We will be having a new commissioner join us, his term begins on October 1st.
Staff announced that they will be at the Arizona Airport Association Annual Fall Conference during the next scheduled meeting asking commissioners if they would like to reschedule the meeting or cancel it for the month of October. Hearing no comments, staff has decided to cancel.
We will be having a new commissioner join us, his term begins on October 1st.
Staff announced that they will be at the Arizona Airport Association Annual Fall Conference during the next scheduled meeting asking commissioners if they would like to reschedule the meeting or cancel it for the month of October. Hearing no comments, staff has decided to cancel.
C.
Approval of Minutes
Staff Recommendation: Approve the minutes as submitted.
Staff Recommendation: Approve the minutes as submitted.
Moved by Kolby White, seconded by Robert Carpenter
Vote: 6 - 0
D.
City Council Updates
Council member Matthews was not present. No Council updates were presented.
4.
STAFF REPORTS
A.
Airport Operation Updates
Enplanements:
August’s enplanements are on trend with past years following the loss of the United service.
Total Operations:
August’s operations are higher than in previous years which is bit outside what we normally see for this time of year. We can attribute that to good weather and high military and corporate traffic.
Parking Revenue:
Parking revenue is staying on trend, and although we had less flights per day this year compared to past ones, we had high load factors. We are still looking to gather more data on the paid parking system as it is still fairly new.
Chair Waddell asked if our new parking rates have been presented to council.
Staff responded: New rates have not been presented yet, we are working on the report and 60 day notice that goes out to the public first but we should be bring these items to council before the end of the year.
Fuel Flow:
Fuel flow is on trend with our total operations, with a busy month for aviation traffic.
August’s enplanements are on trend with past years following the loss of the United service.
Total Operations:
August’s operations are higher than in previous years which is bit outside what we normally see for this time of year. We can attribute that to good weather and high military and corporate traffic.
Parking Revenue:
Parking revenue is staying on trend, and although we had less flights per day this year compared to past ones, we had high load factors. We are still looking to gather more data on the paid parking system as it is still fairly new.
Chair Waddell asked if our new parking rates have been presented to council.
Staff responded: New rates have not been presented yet, we are working on the report and 60 day notice that goes out to the public first but we should be bring these items to council before the end of the year.
Fuel Flow:
Fuel flow is on trend with our total operations, with a busy month for aviation traffic.
B.
FBO Updates
- Wiseman had 5 aircrafts supporting the Canyon fire earlier this summer; two (2) air attacks, two (2) thermal imaging planes and a lead plane that leads the tankers over the fire based with us quite a bit during that fire.
- Wiseman entered into a formal agreement with Sky West to provide on call 24/7 maintenance starting on Sept 1st and they have already used this service several times in the past week and a half.
- Wiseman is picking up their 5th company aircraft after getting painted and interior work completed.
- Wiseman has received their ICAO Letter of Assignment and FAA’s Letter of Authorization to use their new call sign “PINECONE” effective Sept. 15th.
- Annual Chaber of Commerce event is coming up on October 23rd.
- Master Chorale of Flagstaff is hosting their event on November 15th.
- Wiseman Aviation will be attending the NBAA show next month in Las Vegas.
- Wiseman has recently met with their fuel company to discuss fuel supplies, especially with the expectations to hopefully have another airline operating in FLG by 2026 we will be needing to increase their allocations at the Phoenix rack.
- There has been a steady flow of military including three (3) C-130’s all on the ramp last week.
- New print material is still being revised and slowly arriving.
- Wiseman has a new 5000-gallon jet A refueler arriving soon.
- They are continuing work to upgrade their security cameras and using an AI based surveillance system.
- Wiseman is going in a different direction with their new website more updates coming next meeting.
- 2025 summer was one of the strongest in Wisemans history with great staffing.
- Wiseman hosted the the Flagstaff Symphony over Labor Day weekend for the 4th year. The event was very well attended and they expect to be back next year again.
C.
Project and Grant Updates
TSA Screening Storefront
Snow Removal Equipment Building.
- Project is moving forward and we are anticipating movement, from a construction standpoint, in late October.
- Permits have been submitted and we are waiting to hear back on approval.
- The storefront itself has already been ordered and is currently being manufactured.
Snow Removal Equipment Building.
- Staff is working with contractor and subcontractors to complete the 60% bid package that will allow the contractors to generate their pricing.
- Staff has sat down to go over the plan page by page and answer questions that the contractor may have or some of their subs may have.
- We have a deadline of approximately October 17th through the 30th to get the funding request to the FAA.
- Chair Waddell asked if there was any connector/pass through between the new SREB and ARFF buildings.
- There is not, these are two (2) separate buildings that will sit approximately within 100 ft. from each other.
- Orville Wiseman questioned the difference in total project cost vs current funds available.
- Currently the project sits at an estimated $19.5-33M with $9-13M in funds available, the difference between is what we are requesting with discretionary funds which will be covered around 95% by the grants with 5% being covered by the state and City of Flagstaff.
D.
Communication and Business Updates
Flagstaff Pulliam Airport will have an AD running inside the NAU Sky Dome. Unfortunately, there were some issues with measurements when installed, so it delayed, in the meantime NAU offered us digital signage during the first game. Digital signage is not a part of the current advertising package but may be something we add on at a later date. We are also working on a social media collaboration with NAU Athletics which will bring in Louie and a star athlete to the airport once we have our visitor center and micro market fully situated.
5.
INFORMATIONAL ITEMS
A.
Airport Snow Removal Operations
Snow removal operations is a joint task between airport staff, airport partners such as Wiseman Aviation, the Tower and outside vendors. There are two (2) main components to snow operations and they are land side and air side.
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Air side:
Land side:
- Focuses on parking lots, pedestrian sidewalks, and parking lot aisles.
- We partner Morning Dew for our snow operations.
- Each area has a different trigger point for when these snow operations will begin as you can see from the image below that are based on demand and safety.
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Air side:
- Air side would be the areas inside of the fence perimeter and is different from land side as it is heavily regulated by the FAA and part of our Part 139 operating certificate.
- We're required to have a Snow and Ice Control Plan that:
- Outlines tasks to be completed both prior to and during snow season.
- Outlines our snow clearing priorities and operations.
Dictates how we monitor the surface conditions and how we issue our associated notes.
- In case of any kind of weather event on our runways, taxiways, connectors, ramps, etc. we have to issue a NOTAM if there's any sort of contaminate greater than dry such as any type of rain, sleet, ice, etc.
- NOTAMS have an RCC or Runway Condition Code that range from zero (0) to six (6) where six is non-existent or perfectly dry.
- The airfield is broken into two areas First and Second Priority areas which can be seen in the image below.
- Priority 1 areas are shown in red and cover over 2.5 million square feet of asphalt.
- The FAA targets sets a timeline on snow removal based on depth of snow and square footage to be covered.
- We currently have 8 pieces of equipment in our snow operations fleet including material spreaders, loaders, dedicated plows and a multi task piece with various attachment such as a rotary plow and a high speed displacement plow.
- The goal is to get the runway condition codes into a three to five range for commercial aircrafts.
- We our working with the FAA on identifying our greatest equipment needs and replacing some of our older equipment such a our displacement plow which is from about 1993.
- Two of our biggest issues is storage and operation of this equipment. The SREB has been a big effort in providing space for storing and working on maintenance for this equipment. We also rely heavily on overtime for our ARFF team in order to perform their daily tasks along with the increased work of snow operations during winter and the help of temp snow operators.
6.
TO/FROM AIRPORT COMMISSION MEMBERS
Quick update for commission: visitor center hours is currently 8:00 to 5:00 and that will be changing to 5:30 to 2:30 PM next month to try to capture more people here for our morning flights.
Commissioner Shouse: requested we bring the most recent airport study to the commission for a future agenda item.
Commissioner Shouse: requested we bring the most recent airport study to the commission for a future agenda item.
7.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Andrew Shouse, seconded by Kolby White
Vote: 6 - 0