A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Though it isn’t slated to open until January 1, visitors here at NBAA 2015 can get a sneak peak at the Fort Wayne Aero Center, the newly built FBO at Indiana’s Fort Wayne-Allen Count Airport (FWA). The Avfuel-branded location is owned by the local airport authority, which decided it would construct its own FBO and assume general aviation services at the airport, rather than launch a request-for-proposal (RFP) process from the industry at large.

 


The $4.2-million facility occupies nearly 18 acres at FWA, including more than 13 acres of ramp. It features a 12,000-sq-ft, two-story terminal with a passenger lounge, pilots lounge with snooze room, workout room, shower facilities, a pair of a/v-equipped conference rooms seating eight and 20, a fully-equipped catering prep kitchen, onsite car rental, crew cars, concierge and WiFi. The FBO is located on the west side of the airport near the general aviation hangars.

 


While Atlantic Aviation has operated as the lone FBO at the airport since 1988, its current facility on the north side of the field is slated to be demolished when the company’s lease expires at the end of the year, paving the way for a planned expansion of the neighboring airline terminal. Atlantic offered to build its own multi-million dollar replacement facility in a new location, but that wasdeclined.

 


“We did evaluate the typical lease environment where you have to write an RFP, let somebody bid on it and you pick the most advantageous person. We also evaluated having a company come in and perform services on behalf of the airport in a contract management environment,” airport manager Scott Hinderman told AIN earlier this year. He added that the airport board thought that the “proprietary exclusive” idea was the most advantageous way for the airport authority to provide FBO services at FWA. “Atlantic has been here for a long time, and it has done the community very well,” he noted. “It’s just that at the end of the term of the lease, we’re going in a differentdirection.”

 


Atlantic currently leases its fuel farm, which will revert back to the airport and serve the new FBO once the lease expires on December 31. The current FBO presently controls approximately 100,000 sq ft of hangar space, which can accommodate the latest generation of ultra-long-range business jets. An additional 100,000 sq ft of airport-owned hangar space will fall under the control of the new FBO when it takes over next year.

 


While the airport authority has managed the FBO at smaller Smith Field since 2008, Hinderman acknowledged that it is nowhere near the scope of operations at FWA. Six weeks ahead of its scheduled opening, staffing of the facility has been completed, according to general manager Jeff Van Slyke, who will be on hand to answer questions at FWA’s booth in the Avfuel display (C8816).

New developments at FBOs including regulations and noise issues; legal disputes; openings, acquisitions and mergers.

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