A recent innovation at Jet Systems/Avitat at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., is the customer commissary van. The commissary van is the brainchild of Jet Systems president Mike Dolphin, a veteran corporate pilot who recognized the need. Facility manager Wally Seipp said, “I wish we could patent it.” The van is stocked with a variety of consumable products needed in the cabins of business jets, and pulls up right to the airplane’s airstair. “We noticed too many pilots staggering across the ramp to their jets trying to carry all the products they needed to replenish the cabin supplies. With the commissary van, we roll the stockroom directly to them. It also saves them a lot of time.”

The van carries paper products, health and beauty items, batteries, aspirin, first-aid supplies, snacks, gum and candy, bottled water, juices, soda, beer, wine and spirits– sold virtually at the FBO’s cost as a convenience for crews and passengers. Seipp said Jet Systems/Avitat has also been polling visiting business jet operators to determine what else they might need that they don’t currently find among the more than 100 items on the commissary van. The idea has worked so well that Jet Systems/Avitat is building a larger van to carry the supplies. The new van will be on display at the NBAA Convention  in Orlando, Fla., this October.