airport/documents/Mesquite Master Plan Final.pdf - The City of ...

offered in the pilot survey, and other
subjective criteria such as the advan-
TABLE 2L
General Aviation Operations Projections
Mesquite Metro Airport
Based Itinerant
Period Aircraft Operations
2-24
tages Mesquite Metro Airport has over
many regional airports (e.g., ILS).
Local Annual
Operations Operations
2004
FORECAST
223 40,000 60,000 100,000 459
2010 255 51,000 76,500 127,500 500
2015 280 56,000 84,000 140,000 500
2025 330 66,000 99,000 165,000 500
Source: TxDOT Operations Model
The high-end (TAF) forecast is not
considered reasonable because there do
not appear to be enough flight hours
conducted by the based flight school to
account for the local operations. In fact,
the flight school would need to conduct
approximately three to four times the
number of currently estimated flight
hours to make the TAF local operation
estimate reasonable. Conversely, it is
recognized that Mesquite Metro Airport
attracts training activity from other
airports primarily because of the
existence of the ILS. The low end
(TxDOT/FAA Form 1050) is considered
too low because of the obvious growth
observed at the airport. Mesquite is
clearly the most attractive general
aviation airport in the eastern portion
of the Metroplex, southeast Collin
County, Rockwall and the southeast
Metroplex. For this reason, it is
reasonable to assume that operations
will grow at a significant rate through
the planning period.
Air Taxi Operations
Air Taxi refers to those operators that
are that are certified in accordance with
Operations per
Based
Federal Aviation Regulation (F.A.R.)
Part 135 and are authorized to provide,
on demand, public transportation of
persons and property by aircraft.
Typically, air taxi operators are
operating as a charter service or under
a fractional-ownership program.
In the post 9/11 environment, many
executives have opted to use private jets
for their travel needs. Fractionalownership
programs were well
positioned to meet this growing
demand. There are a number of
companies including Citation Shares,
NetJets, Bombardier FlexJet, and
Flight Options which provide this
service. Companies or individuals are
able to purchase partial ownership,
typically one-sixteenth or one-eighth of
an aircraft. This gives them a certain
allotment of time to use an aircraft in
the fractional-ownership fleet. In this
regard, fractional ownership is much
like owning a timeshare.
Analysis of air taxi operators can have
a significant impact on the needs of an
airport. Fractional-ownership
companies utilize business jets almost
exclusively. Many of these aircraft are