The worst FBO's

[coloneldan]

Hey Dark, Hickory NC is only 10 minutes away, I had enough on board to get there and I seriously thought about hoping over to get fuel there.

 

[Darkhlmt]

I'm just a lowely student so what I say doesn't mean much. But good lord in heaven. I would have been out of there so fast.

 

[Flyerjosh]

Mercury Air Center BNA. I can understand excessive handling fees at major Class B airports (LGA, ORD, LAX)... but $250 for a 3 minute "hot" quick turn in a Citation just about gave me a heart attack!

When we shut down to take on fuel (and get the "handling" fee waived), the lady explained that "some days" (whatever that means) they waived it, but couldn't on this particular day because the ramp was busy. Makes sense to me since it took them more time and parking space to keep us there while we took on whatever the absolute fuel load was.

I agree that the Signature at BNA is one of the best in the country (As far as Signatures go)...

 

[coloneldan]

Hey Dark, The only reason I didn't jump to HKY is it costs a LOT of money and fuel to do that. I was in a Lear 25 that day. With both engines at idle on the ground they burn 150 gal/hr. You flightplan roughly 300 gal for the first hour of flight because you burn so much fuel at low altitude and high power settings during the climb. With taxi, takeoff, and the short hop I still would have burned close to 100 gal. Plus there is the maintenance costs to be considered. Every takoff and landing uses up part of the tire and brake life, plus just putting that much time on the airframe. All in all, I got fuel quicker, cheaper, and got on the road faster by waiting on the fuel where I was. I still wasn't happy about it though, neither was the owner.

 

[pilotviolin]

Any local government FBO gets my vote. Worst ones yet are at VGT and Executive Terminal in Tucson. We had an engine problem so I ran inside to grab a couple of ear plugs so we wouldn't go deaf and those brods still needed to charged me 35 cents a piece, even though they could see we were very rushed, and we had just spent $1500 on Jet-A! Morons! I forgot to add Naples Gov. run joke. Just another example of bad government.