With Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer blasting airport management, his fellow supervisors voted Tuesday to dump one longtime operator of maintenance at John Wayne Airport while continuing business with another.
The so-called fixed base operators, which handle a variety of maintenance for planes at the airport, have been on month-to-month contracts with the county. In July 2015, the board asked the airport director to seek requests for proposals to be among two Fixed Base Operators at JWA.
In September 2016, requests for qualifications were issued and eight companies responded, including incumbents Signature Flight Support and Atlantic Aviation.
Fixed base operators provide multiple services such as hangar rentals, mechanical maintenance and fueling.
Signature Flight Support had the best score, followed by Atlantic Aviation, so airport staff recommended awarding interim leases to those national companies, which were already in operation at JWA.
The plan was to award interim leases while airport officials work on a longer-term general plan that would again open up competition for fixed base operators.
The supervisors voted unanimously to award Atlantic Aviation one of the interim leases, and 4-1, with Supervisor Lisa Bartlett in opposition, for ACI JET, which is headquartered in San Luis Obispo.
Supervisor Andrew Do said “it troubles me that right now it sounds like for us is we’re being told to go with the status quo and ride out two years until we come up with a general plan.”
Airport Director Barry Rondinella, who was hired in October 2015, told Do it made more sense to “lay out the blueprint first and then find somebody that matches that blueprint.”
Rondinella said the longer-term plan is being done in part because, “the airplanes have gotten bigger, but the facilities haven’t changed. They haven’t kept pace and that’s why we’re doing the improvement plan — to find out where it’s going to be in the years to come.”
Supervisor Shawn Nelson said “many of the customers of the airport brought this to my attention that they were unhappy” with the current fixed base operators.
“I find it interesting that there’s this justification (from staff) that, well, none of our customers have complained to us,” Nelson said.
“There may be a reason they don’t complain to you. They may not feel comfortable complaining to you, but they were certainly comfortable complaining to me.”
Nelson said having two national chains operate maintenance for the planes at the airport has left some aviators feeling unhappy, particularly with the price of fuel, which some griped was higher than it should be.
“Be careful of minimizing it as it’s only five or 10 percent,” Nelson said. “I’m responsible for 100 percent.”
Nelson said a change in fixed base operators “sends a message as we go through the master plan.”
Spitzer blasted airport officials for what he saw was a “theme” of airport staff postponing decisions on contracts as well as missing a deadline to challenge the federal government’s plans to revise air traffic plans for the airport, which forced the county to take the issue to federal court.
“There have been too many examples of us being held high and dry as a board and I am sick and tired of it,” Spitzer said.
Spitzer moved to postpone a decision until board members could discuss the issue in private Tuesday afternoon with county CEO Frank Kim and County Counsel Leon Page.
“We should have had this master plan to the board a year plus ago,” Spitzer said.
After discussing the issue behind closed doors with Kim and Page, Spitzer remained critical of airport officials.
“I do not believe we’ve got the proper leadership,” Spitzer said.
“You haven’t been responsive to the issue of fuel prices,” Spitzer said. “Or complaints from tenants. You’ve been asleep at the switch.”
Spitzer said airport officials appear to be trying to establish policy instead of letting the board handle that as it should.
“I have literally never seen this before where the board is pushing down an agenda on county staff because there’s been … like some defiance about how things are going to be run in this county,” Spitzer said.
“This is significant because this is a real overt power play. It’s really overt. This is highly unusual with this motion pending for this board to go with a firm that is not recommended by county staff.” Bartlett said Rondinella should not bear the brunt of the criticism because, “He inherited a bit of a mess… He inherited a lot of things out of his control and he has been trying to get a handle on things.”
—City News Service