Mr Cynic is a cynic, you can NEVER have exclusive rights to anything, if it is a FAA funded airport. Grant rights and stuff.
Insurance is one item you did forget, and it a huge and burdensome requirement. There are a number of insurance issues. 1) product liablity and completion, 2) workers comp, 3)building (even if you don't own it, the county or whatever will make you insure their property) 4)health insurance for employees, 5)hangarkeepers.
Product liability is if your mechanic messes up, or you mess up putting fuel into somebodies aircraft. It is based on how much business and fuel you pump. The more you do, the more it cost. I pumped 200K gallons and did $150K retail work in my shop, and it was about $6,000 per year. I had no claims.
Wokers comp varies by state, but in my state it was awful. I had scheduled charter going on, regular charter, and 4 mechanics. The highest was the pilots, even thouh I argued we have no long term care. Either we come home at night or send a mop. But it still ran over $15,000 per year. I had 1 claim in 12 years of business, a mechanic got a hernia.
Health insurance ran $4200 month, 17 enrolled employees, that was my share.
Hangarkeepers was if you damaged a plane while towing, etc, on your ramp. It ran $8,000 per year. You didn't dare call in a claim unless you totaled something, because the insurer would always say you would get cancelled if it ran too high.
I had 14 aircraft, runing from a King Air to 402's to 150's. Insurance cost was $130,000 per year. These figures are about 3 years old, so you can guess they went up a bit. To give you an idea, did about 2.5 million in total sales, take out payroll, gas, heat, eectricity, water, taxes, and maintenance, and of course insurance, ,, well it was a fun business anyway.
And, I did have to pay for the planes, no leasebacks involved. Morgage on them ran $24,000 per month. But I did sell them all for a profit!!
Ah, yes,,, capitol gains tax!!
