Only days after Atlantic Aviation, the major FBO at Santa Monica Airport, filed a Part 16 complaint against the city of Santa Monica, the city sent out 30-day notices to the FBO and American Flyers, a major flight school and fuel provider, to vacate their premises. The companies have been operating on a month-to-month basis as the city has refused to extend long-term leases in its continued effort to close the historic airport. Santa Monica will itself take over FBO services.
American Flyers has been operating as a flight school and FBO for decades on the southwest side of the airport, and Atlantic took over FBO services on the north side about nine years ago.
The action proves that the city is ready to deal a swift heavy hand to the airport tenants and is doing everything it can to shutter the airport completely by 2018. The biggest flight school on the field, Justice Aviation, has already been closed. However, most of the airplanes formerly operated by Justice are still flying at another flight school on the field. While the city can cause harm to the airport tenants, it must continue to provide services to aircraft flying into the threatened airport and cannot legally close the airport.
