Airport Fuel Sales Top 30K Gallons For First Time Ever

The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport sold more than 30,000 gallons of fuel for the first time ever last month.

Airport Manager Dean Selby attributed the monthly sales record to a multitude of things.

“We’ve been going to conferences, we’ve been advertising the area, and we’ve got more people coming to the area. It’s a combination of all of those,” Selby said. “You’ve got to do it all. You can’t just focus on one thing and expect it to solve your problems. You’ve got to go to the conferences, you’ve got to advertise and market, and you’ve got to have a good community for people to come and experience.”

The 31,533 gallons of fuel sold last month came in 19,558 gallons higher than September 2018. The airport sold 3,849 gallons of Avgas to smaller aircraft and 27,684 gallons of Jet-A fuel to the larger planes coming through the area.

Selby said he’s expecting future fuel sales to keep going up, especially with a new contract scheduled to begin later this year with AvFuel.

“If we go back and look for the past two years we can see that trend line moving up. We’re increasing those sales as we’ve done more marketing and outreach,” Saleby said. “My long-range plan is for that to continue on that trajectory. I think AvFuel can be a good partner in helping us do that because they’ve got a very strong marketing team and I think that will help propel us to that next level.”

The airport board of directors awarded the fuel contract to AvFuel during last month’s meeting. Selby said he expects to have the contract finalized by the November board meeting.