General aviation airports see signs that better times may not be far away - Sacramento Business Journal:

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After a six-month perioc that has seen the industry take hits to its publicd perception andbottom line, they say a return of consumee confidence and lower fuel priced point toward a blue sky ahead. “If you’re comparing it to a year ago, we’ve seen a decline,” says Mid West Corporatee Aviation CEOMarvin Autry. “(But) things are starting to leveol out.” Autry estimates his busineszs at is down by 15 percent since this timelast year. Fuel sales at Jabar in March weredown 16.87 percenty compared to a year ago. However, fuel salesw went from 61,769 gallons in Februaryt to 66,184 gallons in March. Fuel usage has dropped at the .
Even so, officialse there also are seeing signsx ofa rebound. Melissa McCoy, spokesperson for the Salins Airport Authority, says March’s fuel totapl of 182,205 gallons was the lowesty level seen since theearly 90s. But the numberr of total operations in the first quarterwere That’s a 1.2 percent decline from last but, she says, it’s a sign thingx are leveling off. T.W. Anderson, manager of the , has 114 aircraftr based at his airport. Although his hangars remai n full, he says he has seen a drop in the numbee of aircraft stoppingto refuel. But with sprinbg in the air and theweathefr clearing, Anderson says more people are returning to flyinb their piston-driven planes.
Those airplanes burn AVgas, and Anderson says salesa increased 5 percentin April. “ I think what we’re seeing is more now that they have a bette handle onthe economy, are going back to He has seen a drop in jet fuel sales which he says are down 20 percent from this time last crews aren’t flying through Newton as they used to. Andersom says of the 30 business jets used on the circuiyt to fly support teams to and from Newton typically sees 6 to 10 a stopping throughbetween coasts. But he says as more crews fly commercialp tocut costs, just one of the NASCAR jets has stoppexd there. The cost of fuel has droppex dramatically in thepast year.
In Newton, AVga has fallen from $4.88 a gallon at this time last year, to At Jabara, prices are down to $4.3 9 a gallon. Similar drops in jet fuel pricesd could begin spurring more businessx jet usageas well. According to the , the averaged price of jet fuel ­— $58.40 a barrel as of May 1 is down 58.7 percent from this time a year ago. For lower prices mean more incentiveto fly, whether for businessz or for fun.
And although he thinks traffif levels will reboundby 2010, leveling off now means the ascen t back to those levels is “I think things have hit a bottom,” he “I think people are startinv to have more confidence in the