This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 21, 2013 - A private jet company is moving into facilities at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport that were formerly used by the Missouri Air National Guard.
Jet Linx – an Omaha, Neb., company that provides private air service for its clients – will begin operations later this year from a private terminal and hangar at Lambert. The site formerly used by the Missouri Air National Guard had been vacant since 2009.
Keith Harbison – one of the three St. Louis-based partners that own Jet Linx St. Louis – said his service will begin operations in September. The St. Louis Airport Commission and the city approved a 10-year lease with his company.
The company, according to a press release, is paying the city more than $1 million to lease seven acres at the southwest end of Lambert, as well as roughly $1 million to renovate the former Air National Guard facility.
Harbison said that his company’s service would help businesspeople travel to other parts of the country more easily – which in turn could be an incentive for businesses to located here.
“The majority of our business is for small and mid-sized companies that need access to different parts of the country,” Harbison said. “It’s harder and harder to get around these days. And it takes more and more time. And it gets more expensive. So we really facilitate business owners and senior executives being able to get to different spots around the country.”
According to a fact sheet from Jet Linx, the company expects to generate more than $1 million in annual tax revenue. And they plan to purchase $3 million annually in jet fuel from local vendors. The company also plans to create more than 100 local positions for design, construction and operation and pilots.
At today’s press conference, Lambert Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said Jet Linx’s arrival in St. Louis is a way to “diversify” the airport’s service “to reach all aspects that we can.” She said there had been an effort to find a private use for part of the Missouri National Guard's facility.
“And for a long time, we were one airport,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “We were a hub by a single carrier. And we didn’t welcome general aviation very well and we didn’t welcome cargo very well. And we certainly didn’t welcome businesses like this. And that’s changed.”
“And now, I think we are a much more diversified airport,” she added. “And that’s a good thing for this community as a whole.”
