Lake in the Hills offers incentives to fill airport vacancies
Lake in the Hills is offering incentives to attract new airport tenants in 2015.
The T-Hangar Incentive Program rewards current airport tenants with a finder's fee equivalent to one month's rent — $302 — for referring new tenants entering into a one-year lease.
The finder's fee would be credited to the current tenant's account.
New tenants signing a one-year lease will receive the first three months rent free, and then pay the full monthly rate. There will be no option to end the lease before the 12-month term is up.
The incentive program also offers new tenants a 10-cent-per-gallon reduction for full-service fuel purchased at the airport during the initial 12-month lease.
Existing tenants renewing their leases are not eligible for the discounted rates.
The airport tried a similar program in 2012 and 2013 to fill hangar vacancies.
“It's really just to try to start and increase the aviation attendance at the airport,” Village President Paul Mulcahy said. “We'd love to have people that are long-term in our hangars. The downturn in the economy hurt that. We are recovering from that.”
The airport has several tenants and not many vacant hangars, but many are being used as storage for nonaviation uses, Mulcahy said.
The east T-hangar building has 10 aircraft spaces, of which nine are rented. The west T-hangar building is mostly being used for non-aeronautical storage. The incentive program aims to bring in more aeronautical storage.
“What we're looking for primarily is airplanes,” Mulcahy said. “We'd love to find a real, active charter type air operation. We want more flying going on out there. There's some vacant rooms that we'd love to rent out to commercial purposes. We also instituted a new fuel pricing plan to not just be competitive, but to get people interested in buying their fuel in Lake in the Hills.”
The hangar incentive program will run through May 31. Officials said filling just one vacant hangar under the program would generate $2,400 more in yearly revenue.
The airport also has increased lease rates for 2015 depending on the size of the storage space, and started a bulk fuel discount program running through July 31.
The village took over fuel sales at the airport in July 2014.
Lake in the Hills has some of the lowest-priced fuel in northern Illinois, yet fuel sales have been declining over the last few years, officials said.
The discount program aims to encourage corporate aircraft customers to buy more full-service Jet-A fuel at the airport. Customers must purchase at least 1,000 gallons per month to be eligible for a 15-cents per gallon discount. The village would issue a rebate check at the end of each month.
Even with the discount, the airport would still make 40 cents per gallon sold.