Airport Spotlight Midwest National Air Center


As far as airports go, the Midwest National Air Center, formally the Clay County Regional Airport, is still in its infancy. But, be prepared! This baby is quickly growing and on the move. Originally, the impetus for creating the airport was to have it serve as a GA reliever for the Kansas City International Airport and as the primary GA airport in the Northeast quadrant of the Kansas City metropolitan area.


Originally, the airport was named the Clay County Regional Airport and was equipped with a 4,000’ X 75’ asphalt runway. In 2003, in an effort to accommodate new businesses to the area and to accommodate larger turbine aircraft, the runway was expanded to 5,504’ X 100’. Then, in 2006, things really began to come together. During this year, the airport received some much-needed funds for the installation of an ILS/DME approach system, and the airport changed its fuel sales strategies.


A lack of local demand for aviation fuel led the airport to look at capitalizing on the airport’s other strengths. These included a long runway, an ILS approach, prox- imity to a large metro area, uncongested airspace and the location in the center of the country, making it a great fuel stop for turbine aircraft. The strategy was to lower the airport’s mark-up on Jet-A, and then make up the difference in the volume of gallons sold. How-


ever, the airport quickly discovered a real problem.


“Flight departments won’t fly into a new unfamiliar airport if they think that there is even the slight- est chance of getting poor service. No pilot wants to look bad in front of their passengers, who might also happen to be the CEO of their company,” Colin McKee, the airport director states.


“Changing our name was just one of many steps that we took to convey to our customers that they would receive top-notch service at our airport”, McKee adds.


Along with the new name change and a long list of other modifications, the Midwest National Air Center can now boast that the last five-year (2006 to 2010) Jet-A fuel sales average has out sold the previous five- year (2001 to 2005) average by 1,322 percent. It can also now call itself home to four jets, two turboprops and a maintenance-base for Executive Air Shares, which is a fractional aircraft company that specializes in the Embraer Phenom 100 and 300 aircraft.


“There is no doubt in my mind that these aircraft wouldn’t have based here if it weren’t for our fuel prices,” McKee states.


When asked if he thought all of the changes were worth all of the difficult growing pains, McKee states:


“It’s been a real challenge to get here, but there is no doubt in my mind that it was worth it.” He also adds “We couldn’t have gotten to this point without the tremen- dous amount of help from our Airport Advisory Board and the open mindedness of the county commissioners and administrator. It has been a pleasure to work with these individuals, and I feel very fortunate to be able to work here.”


For more information about the Midwest National Air Center, contact Airport Director,Colin McKee, A.A.E, IACE, at 816-407-


3390.


4


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10