Other Airports May Follow As More Airliners Parked

A South Carolina airport has found a way to generate some cash from current airline woes. Florence Regional Airport (FLO) officials want the word to get out: if you have a plane to park, they have the place to park your plane.

FLO Executive Director Hartsell Rogers says his airport has enough space for about 150 regional jets. He told the Florence Daily News he got the idea during a trip to one famous aviation "boneyard."

"I was out in Mojave, California, a couple years ago and I’d noticed a lot of airports out there generate revenue by parking planes," he said. "I began putting the word out there that the space is here."

Initially, response was slow; after all, those were comparatively heady times for most airlines, and those carriers needed all the capacity they could get. But that was then, and this is a very tough "now." A third-party maintenance group recently contacted Rogers, saying they had an airline client interested in parking some aircraft either at Florence, or in California.

"I said to him there is no reason to waste gas," Rogers said. "Park them here. It’s just a way for your friendly local airport director to generate revenue."

Today, 12 Mesa Air Group CRJs -- all wearing faded Delta Connection tiles -- grace the ramp at FLO. Rogers says he expects as many as 38 planes there eventually, from that single contract. Some may be parked as little as a month, Rogers adds, while others could stay there a year or more.

The airport won't get rich off the money earned for renting the space... but parking the planes brings in thousands of new dollars each month, Rogers says, from land that would otherwise remain empty.

"We hope this is the beginning of a business we can grow. We’re just trying to rent space."

And as more airlines parked their aging planes... we expect many other airports to consider becoming parking lots, to offset lower revenues.

FMI: www.florencescairport.com/