Results of Aviation Business Strategies Group's (ABSG's) Annual FBO Fuel Sales Survey indicate that 56 per cent of FBOs in the US and Canada experienced a two per cent increase in fuel sales in 2019 over 2018. According to ABSG's principals John Enticknap and Ron Jackson, the overall survey results showed an optimistic FBO industry environment, with a record 73 per cent of respondents feeling confident in the US economy.

“There's no question that 2019 proved to be a very upbeat and positive year for the FBO industry,” Enticknap says. “The survey showed a continued incremental increase in fuel sales for the fourth year in row for the majority of responding FBOs, with a healthy 19 per cent of FBOs surveyed reporting an increase of more than 8%.”

According to Jackson, the biggest gain was for FBOs reporting an increase in fuel sales from 1 per cent to 4 per cent over the previous year. “In this division, 24 per cent said they saw an increase in fuel sales, which is two per cent more than those reporting in 2018. The other segments remained virtually unchanged from the results of our 2018 survey.”

Jackson added that fuel sales were mostly in sync with aviation business flight activity as reported by ARGUS TRAQPak, which tracks hours flown by the business aircraft fleet. “For most of 2019, monthly business aircraft flight activity increased incrementally year-over-date compared to 2018. For the year, flight activity rose slightly, registering a 0.9 per cent gain over 2018 while flight hours rose 1.3 per cent for the same period. Flight activity for Part 91 operators, the bread-and-butter group for FBOs, saw 2.3 million hours flown in 2020, representing an increase of nearly 36,000 hours over 2018.”

A new question for the ABSG Survey asked FBOs whether they would be offering Sustainable Alternative Fuel (SAF) to their customers during 2020. The results showed that 80 per cent of respondents say they would not be offering SAF with only three per cent indicating they would while 17 per cent were undecided.

“Frankly, this response does not surprise us,” Enticknap explains. “SAF is still very new to the FBO industry and there are concerns among operators as to the availability of the fuel as well as a cost factor. Going forward, we see SAF eventually becoming mainstream as more and more aircraft operators adapt and adopt its use, thus increasing the demand at the FBO point-of-sale.”