Next month marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which caused massive flooding in New Orleans and surrounding areas. New Orleans Lakefront Airport (NEW) was extensively damaged by the storm, and a decade later that legacy is reflected in the number of new structures on the field, among them the building currently housing the Landmark Aviation FBO. For the past 22 years Addie Fanguy has served as general manager of the facility, through its changes from a Million Air location to Odyssey Aviation and most recently to Landmark in 2011. The first four or five years after the storm were painful for the airport business operators at NEW, Fanguy recalls, but things are once again looking up.

“There were a lot of obsolete hangars on this airport, and the airport authority didn’t have the money to start reconstruction,” he told AIN. “Like they say, sometimes from tragedy comes positive things, and this was the positive thing here. The federal government invested probably $55 million in this airport, and with that we got all these new hangars.”

After the storm, Fanguy’s facility operated first out of a trailer and then from a cramped office in one of the less damaged hangars; the new Odyssey Aviation terminal was built in 2010 on the opposite side of the field from its original location. Landmark acquired it soon after but was forced to begin a $1.2 million renovation project on the 15,000-sq-ft terminal to repair damage from 2012’s Hurricane Isaac, which roared ashore on the seventh anniversary of Katrina. In addition to stripping down the interior wallboard and replacing furniture and carpeting, the company modified the footprint of some customer areas. The Houston-based company then spent more than half a million dollars replacing all the ground service equipment.

Expansion Continues

Landmark also secured the lease on the airport’s newly built Bastian Mitchell Hangar, which replaced a pair of structures destroyed by Katrina. Earlier this year, the number of FBOs on the field dropped to two when Landmark bought competitor Hawthorne Global Aviation’s location, expanding its footprint at NEW to 550,000 sq ft and bringing it to 100,000 sq ft of hangar space for G650-size aircraft and 10 acres of ramp.

While transient aircraft use the FBO’s main apron, the former Hawthorne terminal offices and hangars are home to Landmark’s based aircraft, a dozen of them turbines ranging from a pair of GIVs to a PC-12. They are serviced by four jet-A tankers (three 5,000- and one 3,000-gallon) that draw from the airport-owned Shell fuel farm. The location also has a pair of 1,200-gallon 100LL trucks. All told, the location pumps 1.4 million gallons of fuel a year. In addition to NATA Safety 1st certification, the company’s line service staff undergoes 40 hours of proprietary online training.

The modern terminal, open 24/7, provides a passenger lobby, concierge service, onsite car rental, a 12-seat A/V-equipped conference room, spacious pilots’ lounge with three snooze rooms and two flight-planning areas. Wi-Fi is provided throughout the FBO. Dish and linen washing service is available, along with aircraft detailing.

Though the Gulf oilfield industry is tops among the FBO’s based clientele, there is plenty of private aviation traffic for events such as Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and the Essence Festival, as well as sports teams (the NFL’s Saints and LSU football) and numerous conventions.

Such events can push operations at the FBO from 500 aircraft a month to 800, and helping last-minute arrivals during the peaks is when the FBO’s staff shifts into high gear, explained Fanguy. “We train our customer service reps to understand what the pilots go through. People own airplanes so they can move about when they want to move about, and a lot of times the pilots get thrown into situations they have no control over,” he observed. “[Our staff does] a great job of constantly staying tenacious with it and getting rooms and cars for the crews and sometimes even the passengers.” 

The FBO’s CSR staff stays updated on all the events taking place in the Big Easy and its many attractions. This fall, with the World War II museum downtown marking the 70th anniversary of the Allied victory, the FBO will host a vintage warbird fly-in, which also will serve as a fundraiser for the museum.

One thing that had been missing at Lakefront since Katrina is set to return, with U.S. Customs and Immigration service at the general aviation airport expected to resume in October from a dedicated 2,000-sq-ft office in the airport’s newly restored 1930s-era main terminal.