Pilots who’ve made the trip to the Redbird Skyport in San Marcos, Texas, for the $1 a gallon gasoline are raving about their experiences. Despite sky high demand since the promotion started on October 1, lines have moved quickly and the FBO has handled the influx of pilots beautifully, we are being told.
As the sign says, 100LL avgas really is $1 per gallon – or to be more accurate, $.99 and 9/10ths cents a gallon. Redbird dreamed up the promotion as a way to gauge whether the high cost of fuel really is as big an impediment to personal flying as many believe. The results from the experiment won’t be released until after the promotion wraps up at the end of the month, but one thing is certain: pilots who are filling up on the cheap gas are ecstatic about it.
So far gas lines have stretched to about 30 minutes at peak times, with the majority of pilots raving about the job Skyport and its employees are doing to keep airplanes moving in an orderly fashion. Nobody seems to be complaining about the short survey they’re being asked to fill out either, which takes about 5 minutes to complete.
Redbird has put a few restrictions in place to keep commercial operators from gaming the system, but so far we’ve heard of no instances where pilots have been turned away from the pump. The promotion is being underwritten by a number of companies and groups, including Flying Magazine, Garmin, Aspen Avionics, King Schools, ForeFlight, Bendix/King, AOPA, GAMA, Jeppesen, Avemco, Piper Aircraft, Sennheiser, Hartzell, Bad Elf, and Brown Leasing, along with the City of San Marcos.
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