Andrews – Western Carolina Regional Airport’s future may become clearer by Monday night.
The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners voted Dec. 5 to terminate the county’s fixed-base operator agreement with Gaylund Trull, but commissioners have not yet provided assistant county manager Maria Hass, who also serves as airport manager, direction about how to move forward. Hass said the board could direct her to advertise for an airport manager and linemen who handle the aircraft, or instead have her solicit a new fixed base operator.
“The update on the airport, if I’m right, Maria, is that Gaylund got served with the papers and that’s about the only real update we have?” Commissioner Ben Adams asked during the board’s Jan 3 meeting.
“That’s correct,” Hass said. “We just need direction from the board, and ya’ll need to discuss how you want us to move forward.”
Vice Chair Jan Griggs said the issue needs to be discussed at the upcoming Monday meeting, and Chairman Cal Stiles agreed.
A fixed base operator is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services, such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance and flight instruction. Trull has served as the airport’s FBO since fall 2018.
Under the current agreement, Trull receives half of the airport’s fuel profits, while the county gets the other half. Multiple county officials have described the agreement as having “illegal” aspects within it, keeping the
airport out of compliance with the Federal Aviation Authority and hindering the county from receiving funding for the facility.
“In 2019, the previous board, of which I was not even a member at that time, voted in a lease for the FBO against legal advice,” Griggs said in December. “The only person who voted against that lease at that time was Commissioner Stiles.”
Commissioner Randy Phillips pointed out that he likewise was not on the board at the time and, although he initially did not realize otherwise, now recognizes that it is not a legal lease.
County attorney Darryl Brown declined to comment about specific illegal elements of the lease.
“For me to be able to make a comment about those things, I would actually have to have clearance from my board to do so because of the potential of litigation if (Trull) decided to file suit against us,” Brown said. “The termination of the FBO lease was simply this, the county was exercising an option that was in his contract for either party to be able to terminate the lease with a 60 day notice, regardless of the reasons.”
According to a Cherokee County Airport Operations document provided by Hass, the airport’s total expenditures have exceeded its total revenues by tens of thousands of dollars each years since at least 2010.
Western Carolina Regional Airport came closest to breaking even during the 2011-12 fiscal year, when its expenditures of $352,231.72 exceeded its revenue of $333,674.01 by $18,557.71. During the 2017-18 fiscal year, the airport’s expenditures of $329,064.30 exceeded its revenue of $223,138.74 by $105,925.56.
“I know there are folks out there saying the airport has made money, and that’s just not the case,” Hass said. “Most airports, if they’re run by a city or county, unless they’ve got an FBO in there who’s paying them some kind of healthy lease, they’re not going to do anything but hopefully break even. That’s the goal and that’s what the FAA wants you to do. We’re never going to see huge profits.”
Western Carolina Regional generated its highest revenue total since at least 2010 during the 2021-22 fiscal year ($423,787.01), but its $496,757.39 in expenditures still exceeded that figure by $72,970.38.
Hass said a “true” FBO agreement could result in a favorable lease agreement between that party and the airport.
“It may not pay $4,500 or $5,000 a month, it could look something like $3,000 a month and maybe 2 or 3 percent of their gross income at the end of the year, but it would be something to that effect,” she said. “That would be money that we could put back into the airport, which is what we are supposed to be doing anyway.
“All monies from airport revenue are supposed to go back into the airport for capital projects and we just haven’t done that over the last few years because we weren’t receiving any of that revenue other than what little we were receiving off of the other 50 percent of the fuel profit. Right now the FAA looks at it as revenue diversion. Right now the county is paying for a business, we’re paying for all the overhead, we have all the expenses and we’re not receiving any revenue.”
Trull did not respond to messages seeking comment by press time Tuesday. In December, he posted a copy of his termination notice to his personal Facebook page.
“It’s been a pleasure to serve the taxpayers of Cherokee County and make a lot of dreams come true and start a lot of careers,” Trull stated in the post.
Hass said she does not anticipate a lapse in any services at the airport and added that Trull could continue to conduct flight lessons after his FBO contract ends at 5 p.m. Feb. 3. She added that news about the termination of his agreement has generated a fair amount of interest from other parties, including another flight instructor who has expressed interest in returning to the airport.
In October, the previous board of commissioners unanimously voted to take no action on a new fixed-base operator lease agreement with Trull, whose current five-year contract was set to run through 2024.
Commissioner Dan Eichenbaum announced his intention to discuss the new fixed base operator lease agreement in closed session, part-way through the meeting. Eichenbaum, Phillips and then-Commissioner Gary “Hippie” Westmoreland approved the motion to go into closed session, 3-2, over Stiles’ and Griggs’ objections. Griggs and Stiles noted they had no knowledge of the contract ahead of time.
“After consultation with the board in closed session, pursuant to Chapter 143 of the North Carolina General Statutes, I have advised the board and can report to the board that if it chooses to enter into this lease, it would be against legal advice,” Brown said following the brief closed-session meeting.