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Air Charter Service Ready to Break Ground on Terminal at Medford, Ore., Airport

Posted on: Friday, 30 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

By Greg Stiles, Mail Tribune, Medford, Ore.

Sep. 30--Superior Air Center is preparing to alter the Medford airport skyline and change its identity in coming months.

The 14-year-old air charter service and fixed-base operator breaks ground next week on a $2 million-plus, 14,000-square-foot executive terminal and corporate headquarters. A planned $2 million-plus 26,000-square-foot hangar is awaiting architectural review by the city of Medford. Both projects are due for completion by June.

"These will be the two most prominent buildings people will see when they drive past the airport," Superior Air General Manager Joe Keith said Thursday.

Superior Air has also aligned itself with Million Air Interlink, of Houston.

As a result, Superior will change its name to Million Air Medford. Superior Air Charter will remain its charter arm and the service division will be called Superior Aircraft Maintenance.

Million Air has locations from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with Monterey, Calif., the closest stop 400 air miles away.

Sandy Nelson, Million Air's marketing and customer relations vice president, likened the affiliation to hotel branding.

"One of our biggest risks is to hand over our brand name to a company or owner and hope they carry the torch," Nelson said. "Our customers look at us as a chain -- as if we had complete control of hiring, firing and standards -- all things that make a brand. (Superior Air) was an easy fit in that their attitudes, beliefs system and values are equal to what we believe."

Nelson points out that virtually every Fortune 100 company owns a jet or a fleet of jets, some used for corporate operations and others acting as a taxi service.

"If you are a pilot going to an airport where you don't traditionally fly and have a choice to deal with (fixed base operator) company A, B or C, you' re most likely choose the corporate brand you are used to," Nelson said. "It 's like going on the Internet to find a hotel. You may not be sure what it looks like, but you know if you go to a Hilton, there are certain standards to which they are accountable."

Superior Air recently completed a two-year process to become Oregon's first Raytheon Aircraft Company-authorized maintenance center for Beechcraft planes and the only one between Seattle and Sacramento.

"It's huge for us," said Keith, whose staff has grown to 32 from five in three years. "Two years from now, we'll probably have 100 employees and be a nationally recognized name in aviation maintenance. Potentially, we'll have 100 family-wage jobs -- people making $50,000 or more as airplane mechanics and skilled laborers."

The construction site is on Milligan Way, between Mercy Flights and the sheriff's airport office. R.A. Murphy Construction of Eagle Point is building the terminal and office structure, while Adroit Construction of Ashland is handling the hangar project.

Keith says the new hangar can house two corporate jets of the Gulfstream 5s or Global Express class planes -- very large private aircraft.

In addition to operating its own planes, Superior began managing corporate planes two years ago and would like to add a half-dozen to the pair it now manages.

"We maintain them and put our charter certificate on them so when the owner doesn't use the plane, we can produce revenue," Keith said. "When the owner writes that check at the end of the year, it's smaller than if they didn't use it for other things."

He said the charter business has grown substantially, taking advantage of Medford's location between San Francisco and Seattle.

"Only about 20 percent of our flying is generated by local traffic," Keith said. "We're doing a lot of over-flow flying for other charter companies and we end up flying to the East Coast several times a month."

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Copyright (c) 2005, Mail Tribune, Medford, Ore.

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Source: Mail Tribune

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