A group of hangar lessees at Centennial Airport in Colorado says rent hikes imposed by their FBO landlord violate the airport’s grant assurance limits. In a letter to the FAA, the Association of Town Hangar Tenants is calling for an investigation into the doubling of their rents in 14 months from $600 to $1,200 a month. They claim the increase violates conditions of the grant assurances for airport improvements that hangar rents be “fair and reasonable” and in line with hangar rates at other comparable airports. The group says the rent increases amount to a “constructive denial of access” by pricing the hangars out of the reach of some tenants. Here’s the letter.
Spokesman Chris Stieber said there is a list of about 100 aircraft operators waiting for a spot in the rental units known as the “Town Hangars” that are owned by the jetCenters FBO. In a letter to the tenants in December, the landlord said it needed to raise rates to “align with prevailing market rates for comparable properties.” Stieber says he’s not sure what properties the FBO used for comparison purposes, but his research indicates that at the current $660 a month his rent is among the highest charged at Colorado airports. There have been meetings between the local airport authority and the FBO. AOPA is also involved.
Same phraseology is being used at my home airport for proposed increases (proposed to be 20-38%) at my home airport, which many of you visit in July, along with significant fuel flowage increase per gallon which you will all pay when you visit in about six months.
This sounds similar to when a small landlord keeps the rent the same for many years, then suddenly realizes how much money they’re losing as they haven’t kept pace with inflation and try double the rent all at once. As one lawyer explained, they would’ve been far better off with a couple of percent changes every year instead of trying to make up for a decade of stagnant rates all at once.
To that end many cities and states have laws that restrict how much a landlord can raise the rent each year. But those laws are designed for places where people live. I don’t know that they would be applicable to non-habitable structures.
In 4 years, the “Town Hangar” rents at APA have been increased from $500 to $600 to $660 to $1,200 (starting April 1, 2026). The latest increase is 82%. What the jetCenters probably should have done is to tie the rents to the Consumer Price Index. The rents at other local airports is still well below the current $660; the FAA has historically used the rents for other local or nearby airports as the basis for “fair and reasonable” rents, fees and charges for the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grant assurances. In other words, are the rents similar to the other local airports? $1,200 is clearly not.
I’m sure carefully priced to whittle that long waiting list down to almost nothing. While maximizing revenue and reducing reliance on future grant assurances.
Seems a common tactic. Here at Falcon Field, the airport authority is just failing to renew leases on 19 GA hangars so they can build 3 big corporate hangars. There is other land available for the corporate hangars, I guess they just don’t want the GA traffic. It’s all about the money!
I’ve spoken with one of the board members at APA – he claims that no one has (yet) submitted plans to replace the current hangars with larger corporate ones.
One FBO at Westchester County Airport (HPN), Millionair, last year said it was increasing single engine tiedown rates from approximately $345/mo to $800/mo, and this was later reduced to $600/mo. through 2026, based on a wholly unsupported claim of its expenses. The correspondence between the FAA, the County of Westchester (as the airport sponsor that received the federal funds to build out the FBO premises), and users is here: https://westchesteraviation.org/links . So far, the County response has failed to answer the FAA’s questions and the FBO’s response is riddled with inaccuracies. The situation is ongoing. The FAA has been responsive and active in its investigation. It’s driving customers out of their tiedowns, all the better so the FBO can concentrate on high-end jet support.
The sad truth is that if there is a properly managed waiting list and the airport is not self-sustaining, an increase in rent makes sense.
The right rent will result in 90-95% occupancy.
I don’t necessarily like that a private company gets to run things, though. That is a convenient end-run around keeping money earned on the airport, on the airport.
I used to fly a corporate KingAir at Centennial. It’s a very busy airport with parallel runways and a cross wind runway. It has a restaurant, flight service station, and control tower. I don’t recall anything about landing or tie down fees. That was up to the bean counters.
When an airport accepts FAA Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants, they agree to certain “grant assurances” (see Appendix D of Part 152). APA has accepted 6 AIP grants since 2022 and this rate increase violates the grant assurances. In other words, the money comes with strings attached.
Nothing would make me happier than seeing these guys prevail in a part 13/16 complaint. I just don’t think it will happen. Closest I’ve seen is state intervention on a rent increase case when the rent was increased without following the rules agreed upon for calculating rent increases.
I’m on the other end of town from APA. I’ve had direct conversations with our airport manager about the lease rates on county hangars and land-lease rates for the privately owned hangars. But not in the direction you think. They haven’t raised the county hangar rates barely at all as long as I’ve been flying there – which is over a decade. I was in a club that uses a county hangar – large enough to hold the clubs Saratoga and another one to hold the F33 Bonanza. Lease rates from the county was around $300/mo. I think it might have gone up a little bit since then, but it hasn’t broken through the $400 range. Given I’m in a privately owned hangar – the smallest you can get on the field I told the airport manager that the lease rates were actually too low given the demand on the field. I don’t know if my conversation about this sparked the need to adjust the rates, but he did an evaluation and appropriately realigned the private land lease rates to be even. In other words, everyone pays the same per square foot. Larger hangars paid more because of more land consumption, but the smaller hangars paid the said per square foot.
The end result? My land lease rate went DOWN… Of course I’m sure the larger hangars that had a substantial increase in their rates weren’t happy, but it is proportional now.
I get there is a finite amount of land on these airports. And new hangars are definitely going to cost more to build/own these days. But I also think given the fact there is at least an 8 year wait list for our airport, the demand to build hangars for GA would drive construction. But hey – what do I know…
This all started in 2007 or 2008 when the county relinquished control of the airport in lieu of a “public” airport board. The board immediately handed over the land leases to Denver jet center.
Years ago I owned a hangar at the airport. The land lease expired and the FBO would not renew it. So instead of $85 a month for the land lease I was charged $600 to rent my own hangar. No surprise. they want $1,200 a month now for something they never really paid for to begin with.
The issue here is us single-engine piston owners don’t have the resources or time to organize and sue. The FBO managers are doing their job and trying to get the highest profit they can but it kills the soul of general aviation. There are also high profile attorneys who own aircraft at the airport and land at the airport…
T hangars are just not profitable compared to the large box hangars and leases fbo’s can charge for large aircraft. Hopefully the dots can get connected that caused this issue in the first place
Craig – the piston aircraft owners are active and have filed a Part 13 Complaint with the FAA. If it’s unsuccessful, then a Part 16 Complaint is the next and final step. What’s important to remember is that when an airport accepts AIP grant money, they agree to certain conditions known as grant assurances. Those assurances require that all rents, fee and charges are “fair and reasonable” which the FAA defines as similar to other airports in the local area or region. The current rent is already the highest in the local area. And the FBO has refused to disclose their data and analysis to support an even higher rate. The federal money comes with strings attached. APA has accepted 6 FAA AIP grants since 2022.
Remind me to give my airport director a big hug the next time I see them.
Here in Cleveland TN they are doing similar increases and using a formula derived from TDOTs recommended program. This program was developed through third parties and is a recommendation they are using. I believe the classification of airports within the program is a big part of the issue and maybe the amount of grant money is determined by the classification. Here they are calling us a regional airport and when using the formula derived TDOT a regional airport pays more. Huge gray area. Maybe they are using the same formula there.