If you thought Redbird’s $1 a gallon gasoline promotion for the month of October sounded too good to be true, well, you were right. Citing overwhelming demand and the toll it has taken on the Skyport FBO staff in San Marcos, Texas — not to mention the company’s bank account — Redbird has decided to suspend the promotion after October 15.
“In preparing for this experiment, we planned for traffic averaging eight times normal, [but] the actual response has been four times higher than that — over 30 times our normal volume,” Redbird said in a message posted online. “The response has been so overwhelming … that simply meeting the demand for fuel has become unmanageable. We have had three trucks running full time and wait times are still approaching two hours.”
Redbird said its Skyport FBO usually pumps about 4,000 gallons of 100LL in a month, but projections for this month showed that by October 15 its employees will have pumped more than 90,000 gallons.
“Unfortunately, continuing at that rate for the entire month is physically and economically unviable, but we are committed to handling the demand through AOPA Summit in Fort Worth, and to the halfway point of the month,” Redbird said. The Skyport FBO normally sells 100LL avgas for around $6 a gallon.
The goal of the experiment was to gauge whether high costs really are the reason general aviation activity has been slowing over time. Based on the huge demand for cheap gas, there certainly appears to be some truth to the idea.
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