UC Regional Airport Seeing Some Effects From Fuel Prices

Upper Cumberland Regional Airport feeling some effect of the rising fuel prices.

Airport Manager Dean Selby said that increase has slowed some people down from flying.

“But it’s not has been as significant as I anticipated,” Selby said. “Perhaps it’s not really hit yet, or maybe people were already factoring the prices in, I’m not sure, long-term we don’t know. but nationwide you’re seeing a slight decrease in total number of miles flown by general aviation craft.”

Selby said that he predicts that based on preliminary numbers, they will be about even with last year’s numbers. He said that originally, they predicted those fuel sales to be much higher.

Selby said the airport has been working to find ways to keep up with the costs. He said that one of their biggest concerns is maintaining a price that allows them to operate, but won’t drive away consumers.

“It affects most of the people that are not the flying public,” Selby said. “It will impact things like your cost of transport of goods for instance if we fill up a freighter (…) everyone sees that impact one way or the other. Economies are so complicated now and everything is so intertwined. Any one industry from the other, transportation affects everything just like the cost of groceries affects everything. It all gets factored in to just your total cost of living.”

Selby said that from what he understands, he feels that if we get through the Russia-Ukraine conflict, things could hopefully return to usual prices.