NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Pieter Miller with the Hutchinson Airport told Hutch Post they are just getting started with an airport business plan.
"The reason we put this plan together and we've been trying to put it together here for several years, is to put on paper what it is we should be doing as far as economic development at the airport goes," Miller said. "We are about 65% self-sufficient out there. 65% of my budget comes from revenue sources on the airport. Leases, farming, fuel sales, things like that. In order to get that number higher, we need to figure out ways to increase the opportunity for revenue at the airport. Put another way, we need to build more hangars and get more airplanes out there. There's a process for that. We're trying to figure out the most beneficial and economically responsible way to do that."
The airport, like the rest of the economy, took some hits from the changes in everyone's lives due to COVID-19, but it also caused some positive change.
"The pandemic pretty much wrecked everything," Miller said. "All airports, that's why those emergency grant funds came through in order for us to keep the doors open and the lights on, because airplanes stopped for about six months. We didn't have a whole lot going on. Since then, however, it has come roaring back, like we've never seen before. We are above average operations, anywhere from 37 to 39, almost 40,000 operations we've had over the last couple of years. A lot of that is flight training. Apparently, people went out and bought airplanes during the pandemic. Corporate business traffic is way up."
It's because of that success that the airport believes there is a path to self-sufficiency, and maybe even eventually to the airport being its own department.
"All sorts of different corporations have been purchasing private jets and they've been training their pilots and Hutchinson is kind of known as a training pilot airport," Miller said. "Flight schools and the different manufacturers out of Wichita helps with traffic."
Miller also said it is their intent to ask for additional funding as part of this business plan from the Kansas Forest Service to continue to support their tanker that is based out of Hutchinson.