Fly High is Franklin County's new FBO

Franklin County commissioners have signed a contract with a new fixed base operator for the Franklin County-Apalachicola airport.

The county signed a contract with a company out of North Carolina called “Fly High” to take over the FBO position – the company will provide airport services like fueling, hangaring, aircraft rental and maintenance.

The new contract was approved 4 to 1, but commissioners did have some reservations about the agreement.

The board had hoped to limit the contract to 5 years so they could see if the FBO was creating jobs at the airport before renewing.

What they agreed to is a 5 year lease which will automatically renew for an additional 10 years as long as the company does not violate the terms of the lease.

“Fly High” was also unwilling to stipulate in the lease how many jobs it would create saying that would depend on economic conditions.

The county commission felt it had no choice but to accept the agreement.

Since the current Fixed Base operator is already moving out and has stopped buying fuel for the airport, the board would have had to have left the airport basically untended for weeks or months while they continued to negotiate and they did not want that to happen.

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