Mike Landguth

A company supplying fuel and hangar space at Chattanooga’s airport on Thursday said a plan by Lovell Field officials to add another similar business goes against the trend amid the slow economy.

“It’s unusual for an airport to be adding fixed-base operators right now when the trend is consolidation and reduction,” said David Edwards, Tac Air’s marketing director.

Christian Sasfai, the Texarkana, Texas-based company’s vice president and chief operating officer, said the FBO industry has experienced a downturn during the past couple of years.

Typically the industry has had a 30 percent to 50 percent reduction in business, Sasfai said.

“All of our locations and the industry as a whole has suffered,” he said.

Also, Tac Air officials said they already face competition at the airport from FBOs in nearby markets.

“The efficiency of aircraft today as compared to many years ago is so much improved. Aircraft don’t need to refuel every time they stop,” Sasfai said.

Chatta-nooga Metropolitan Airport officials on Wednesday announced a $10 million plan to add new general aviation facilities and woo a second fixed-base operator.

The new site, which will sit across the main runway from Tac Air’s facilities, is to include a general aviation terminal, 12,000 square feet in hangar space and a fuel farm that could serve commercial airlines as well. The state will pay for 90 percent of the project with the airport picking up the rest, officials said.

With Volkswagen’s new auto assembly plant, its suppliers moving into the area, Wacker’s planned plant in Cleveland, Tenn., and other businesses, expansion makes sense to meet growth, airport and city officials said.

“We want to grow the pie,” said Mike Landguth, the airport’s president. Landguth said he has talked to other FBOs that are interested in coming to Chattanooga.

“We have gotten a strong positive reaction,” he said.

He and other officials added that more competition is good for the airport and area businesses.

But, three years ago when the airport raised a similar idea, Tac Air officials questioned how financially healthy two FBOs would be at the airport. Airport officials eventually backed away from expansion then.

Tac Air officials said Thursday they don’t know if they will bid on the second FBO proposal.

“We don’t have enough information,” Edwards said.

Sasfai said Cleveland, Tenn., is building a new airport and boosting competition for business from that city.

“There will be competition from Chattanooga’s airport itself to keep some of that business,” he said.

Tac Air, a division of Truman Arnold Cos., came into the Chattanooga airport when it bought Krystal Aviation in 2002. It employs about 30 people in Chattanooga, Edwards said.

The company both owns and leases facilities at the airport, Sasfai said.