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

In 1978, Bill Giannetti and a fellow pilot received permission to establish an FBO at the University of Illinois/Willard Airport (KCMI). The university-owned and -operated airport began operations in 1945, and despite its being home to the university’s Institute of Aviation—a flight training and research facility—for decades, it had no general aviation service provider.
“We started with a trailer, we moved to a bigger trailer, and about 10 years later we built the building here. We’ve grown it from basically a flight school to a full-service FBO with charter flying and aircraft management,” Giannetti told AIN, noting that it has gone from just three employees at the start to 170 today.
The company’s 10,500-sq-ft terminal opened in 1989, and at an age now when other service providers are considering knocking down their buildings, Flightstar’s remains pristine. “We’re constantly remodeling and improving,” said Giannetti. “We have people come in here and ask if we just built this because we never let anything sit very long.”
The building features a full crew lounge with a pair of snooze rooms and two private restrooms with shower facilities. Set just off the main lobby, one side of the room has a glass wall.
“Back when we were designing the building, we hated pilot lounges that were in the back of the facility,” Giannetti said, adding that he wouldn’t use them because he feared he would miss his passengers' arrival. “We made ours so the crews can see their passengers when they show up.”
Other amenities include a refreshment bar, a flight kitchen, a trio of crew cars, and rental cars delivered to and processed at the terminal. One unusual service is an in-house aviation medical examiner office in the terminal to conduct pilot physicals. "That's worked out really well," said Giannetti. "We set him up with a whole office, and it's for the convenience of our crews and everyone else around here."
The FBO added a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility three years ago. Located adjacent to the terminal, and built to CBP specifications, the $2 million facility provides international arrivals clearance with advance notification.
The Avfuel-branded dealer provides all the fueling services on the field, including commercial, and manages the airport’s aging fuel farm, pumping nearly 2 million gallons of fuel a year. The underground fuel storage system—which holds 62,000 gallons of jet-A, 14,000 gallons of avgas, 3,500 gallons of automobile gas, and 3,500 gallons of diesel—is nearing the end of its life, and will require replacement over the next few years.
In 2014, the university closed its aviation institute, with its flight training operation taken over by a local community college. Given that retrenchment, it has become a question of who would replace the fuel farm. “It was kind of a legacy thing when we took it over and they just don’t want to be involved in it anymore,” Giannetti said. “Our airport is kind of unique; we don’t have property tax funding, it’s all funded by the UofI, and being [that] their Institute of Aviation is no longer here, they really don’t have a lot of incentive to put money into the airport. Obviously, they want to keep it going, but they would rather we pay for the fuel farm.”
Flightstar’s NATA Safety 1st and Avfuel-trained technicians operate a fleet of trucks including a 5,000-gallon and 3,000-gallon jet-A refueler and a pair of 1,200-gallon avgas tankers to service the farm. The location also provides Type I and Type IV deicing.
The FBO—which is open daily from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. with after-hours call-out available—has approximately 109,000 sq ft of hangar space, which can accommodate regional airliners, and is home to 10 business jets ranging from a Bombardier Global 7500 to a Learjet 45. That total space will increase in January as a $7 million, 28,000-sq-ft hangar under construction for the past nine months comes online. Flightstar also has more than 16 acres of ramp.
The facility handles 24,000 operations a year, including dozens of large sports charters for the university. Giannetti stated that the fall season is its busiest time of year based on the university’s athletic schedule which sees football, basketball, and other major sports in full swing.
In addition to its other offerings, the FBO’s Part 145 repair station is a Bombardier-authorized service facility for Learjets, but the company is working to earn that status for Challenger series aircraft as well. It has its own avionics shop, and Flightstar also provides MRO services for regional airline Envoy Air (American Eagle), performing maintenance on two Embraer E175s every night.
When it comes to customer service, positivity is the driving factor for the company. “I think we are known for our can-do attitude,” explained Giannetti. “If you ask us a question, if we can do it, the answer is always going to be yes.”

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