SkyWest to Move into Empty Hangar

By TIM STELLER

Bombardier subsidiary Learjet to get about $675,000 a year for sublease

SkyWest Airlines plans to move its local maintenance base to a huge, empty hangar at Tucson International Airport next month.

The Tucson Airport Authority’s board on Tuesday approved a sublease agreement between Learjet, a subsidiary of Bombardier Aerospace, and SkyWest.

Under the agreement, SkyWest will pay Learjet rent of about $675,000 per year to occupy about 63,000 square feet of the 235,000- square-foot hangar. The sublease is for five years, with two additional three-year options.

SkyWest currently rents a 28,000-square-foot hangar, near East Valencia Road and South Park Avenue, from the airport authority.

The new location will be a move up for SkyWest, said Dick Gruentzel, vice president of finance and administration for the airport authority.

“The Learjet facilities are state-of-the-art. It’s far and away a much nicer facility than what they’re moving out of,” Gruentzel said.

Although SkyWest is moving into a bigger space, that doesn’t mean it’s adding to the 75 jobs at the maintenance center, said Marissa Snow, a SkyWest spokeswoman.

“It’s just better accommodating our current operation,” she said.

SkyWest also has a crew domicile in Tucson – offices that serve as the home base for pilots and flight attendants. Between the maintenance base and the domicile, SkyWest has 188 employees in Tucson, Snow said.

In Tucson, SkyWest flies under the brand name United Express to Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles. SkyWest flies as Delta Connection to Salt Lake City.

As to the rest of the hangar, “Bombardier is exploring all its options,” said Eric Brammer, general manager for Bombardier Aircraft Services in Tucson.

Did you know …

The hangar SkyWest Airlines will sublease was built in 1990 by Lockheed Martin to work on L-1011 jetliners. Lockheed used the facility for five years, then it sat vacant until Bombardier’s Learjet subsidiary bought it in 2001 and used it for aircraft- completion work.

Bombardier moved its completion operations to Wichita, Kan., and Montreal starting in 2004. The startup Dunnair Business Jet Completion Center subleased the hangar complex and used it briefly before folding in January 2007.

* Contact Business Editor Tim Steller at 573-4663 or tsteller@azstarnet.com.

Originally published by TIM STELLER, ARIZONA DAILY STAR.

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