GOLDEN ISLES AVIATION Continued from page 51 W hen aircraft dealer Bill Walker purchased Golden Isles Aviation in 1986, the FBO serv- ing Georgia’s McKinnon St. Simons Island Airport (SSI) was losing money and aging. But according to Larry Wade, the FBO’s Managing Partner, President and General Manager, Walker’s primary incentive to purchase the facility was not so much to run an FBO, but to assure continued occupation of his leased space on the property when the owner put it on the market. Once Walker closed the sale, Wade, who had joined the new owner’s aircraft sales firm fresh out of gradu- ate school, became Golden Isles Aviation’s new operator/ manager—with no prior knowledge of FBO operations and minimal exposure to aviation. “I could not even spell ‘FBO,’ but at 7AM the morning after the transaction was concluded, I was tasked to run it,” he remarked. “I had to learn by experience.” Still, he noted, this had its positives. “With no preconceived ideas about what an FBO should be, you can more cleanly envi- sion what it could be,” Wade remarked. Golden Isles Aviation did have some important advan- tages that could be exploited, namely its location. The airport, which is strictly general aviation, serves not only St. Simons Island, but Little St. Simons Island, Sea Island and Jekyll Island, where Wade grew up. Those four bar- rier islands, situated off Georgia’s southeastern coast, and the port city of Brunswick, are collectively known as the “The Golden Isles of Georgia,” and are a well- known upscale vacation destination offering high-end resorts and world-class golf courses that host a yearly PGA event. While nearby Brunswick Golden Isles Airport (BQK) does have commercial airline service, along with an FBO, it is situated on the mainland. “When people fly in here, many times it is because they are coming to St. Simons/Sea Island, and we are on the island itself, instead of a 30-minute drive after landing,” he said. But for all its locational advantages, the FBO, estab- lished in the late 1940s, clearly needed some refreshment. “We kept the name, but, in 1989, we refurbished the terminal building. It was a nice-looking, clean facility, but not in the arrangement, quality and feel of today’s new FBO terminal,” said Wade. “While pilots indicated they liked the renovations we did, Bill and I wanted to establish an FBO that both pilots and their passen- gers would perceive as a home away from home.” 52 To do that, Wade proposed replacing the original structure with a unique complex—an FBO with an adjoin- ing hotel. “The idea began to come together and made sense especially for an airport like SSI that serves a resort area, with mainly transient traffic,” he remarked. As Wade pointed out, while very few general avia- tion airports have hotels situated on their proper- ties, he never saw a combination FBO/hotel at a general aviation airport in the United States. “Because the FBO and hotel would be next door to each other, pilots and passengers would be able to walk to the hotel from the aircraft,” he noted. “Pilots would not have to take taxis or rent cars and drive from the airport to their hotels.” Wade took the idea to Gaines Sturdivant, a personal friend and CEO of Jackson, Mississippi-headquartered MMI Hospitality, which owns hotels throughout the south. Among MMI’s properties, is the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort on St. Simons Island. “When I approached Gaines, who is a pilot, about going in with us on a hotel with our new FBO plans, he was all for it,” said Wade. “We had the Glynn County Airport Commission, which owns SSI, carve that area from our lease and directly lease it to MMI. So, I am the co-owner of the FBO with my business partner, Bill Walker, and the hotel, while located on part of the FBO’s former leased premises, is separately owned and operated by MMI Hospitality.” Construction of the project began in August 2015, dur- ing which time, the old FBO terminal was leveled to make room for the new facilities. To assure uninterrupted service during construction, one of the FBO’s seven hangars, which provided 8,000 square feet of hangar space, including Aviation Business Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018
