Stafford airport wrangles with lower fuel sales, debt repayment

Profits at Stafford Airport are nearly grounded due to low fuel sales and a lower number of customers.

Stafford Regional Airport has seen its business take a nosedive due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Their fuel sales are down 67%, and their aircraft operations are down by over 50%.

While the airport hasn’t had to furlough any employees, employees’ hours have been reduced by four hours a day. They’ve also had to cut back their staff from four people to two-three people per day over the last three months.

Relief may be on the way however since the Airport will be receiving a Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act grant of $30,000 from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The grant can be used for any purpose that airport generated revenue can be used for, this would include rent, utilities, payroll, and maintenance.

The hope is that the grant will cushion the airport until business picks back up, this would allow them to bring operations back to full strength, according to Airport Manager Edward Wallis.

This is just the top of the mountain of problems that the pandemic has caused in hampering operations at the regional airport.

One of the bigger issues the airport will be facing is the repayment of a loan with a remaining balance of $1.3 million that was taken out for the construction of an airport terminal back in 2009. The airport had received a grant from the Virginia Department of Aviation worth $2.2 million which was matched by a loan from Stafford County. The amount requested from the county was $1.3 million but the project came in under budget by $1 million.

The Airport Authority is hoping to get a temporary deferral from the County until the business can get back to normal. Barring that, the Airport Authority is hoping to negotiate a lower percentage of the loan repayment with the County.

“The repayment schedule is based on 55% of any new commercial or corporate leases starting after the terminal construction was completed. If the county would not defer our monthly payment we would defer 45% of the rent payments of our tenant so we could pay the county their 55%,” replied Airport Manager Edward G. Wallis.

Some of this may go into the Airport’s ongoing runway extension which is in the permitting, mitigation, and design phase. The extension will add 1,000 feet to the already existing 5,000-foot runway and will cost between $10 to 15 million.

“The FAA CARES Act Grant if awarded will fund 100% of this portion of the project. Normally there is a 2% local share match and the State Dept of Aviation provided 8% of the funds. The FAA under normal circumstances funds 90% of eligible projects not 100%,” stated Airport Manager Edward G. Wallis.

The projected date of completion for the runway is sometime in Spring 2022.