Five years after enduring harsh criticism for lavish spending of public money, DuPage Airport appears determined to reap the benefits from its $10 million, three-story Flight Center and luxury golf course by snagging the business of corporate jet travelers.
The airport staff, taking advantage of upscale surroundings of the 2,800 acres in West Chicago, adheres to a philosophy of pampering high-level executive customers, and the effort appears to be taking off.
The zeal for providing high-quality service has airport employees dashing about nearby towns on a quest to satisfy an executive’s craving for sushi, lobster or authentic Italian food. The employees also wash china and Waterford crystal carted in from corporate airplane kitchens. They arrange hotel accommodations and transportation, and reserve golf carts at the airport-owned Prairie Landing Golf Course.
Often, the staff helps privacy-seeking chief executives remain incognito by ordering limousines to drive up to the airplanes, allowing the businessmen to depart quickly.
Such efforts to please were perhaps most evident the day the Flight Center’s general manager, Randy Fank, raced across a football-field length of airplane parking lot trying to corral a chief executive’s pet husky.
The dog “ran across to the field and just started digging,” Fank said. “I had the pilot with me, and he said, `That damn dog does that every time.’ “
Airport officials attribute a significant increase in corporate business to the facility’s focus on customer service, the recent extension of a runway to 6,700 feet from 5,100 feet, the opening of a U.S. Customs office within the Flight Center, and corporate development in the western suburbs.
Overall, the airport has seen a 17 percent increase in takeoffs and landings since 1995, with 216,340 operations in 1997, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
That means DuPage has surpassed Palwaukee Municipal Airport in so-called operations, ranking it the third-busiest airport in Illinois, after O’Hare International and Midway Airports.
This year, 83 percent of all fuel sold at DuPage Airport has been jet fuel for corporate planes. Jet fuel accounted for 35 percent of fuel sold in 1992, by comparison. Total fuel sales grew 19 percent from 1996 to 1997, reaping $435,000 in profit last year.
The number of corporate turbo jets based at DuPage Airport has increased to 56, compared with 22 in 1992. Waste Management Corp. and McDonald’s Corp. are among the high-profile clients that lease hangar space from the airport. Both Oak Brook-based companies own planes that are capable of flying non-stop to Europe from DuPage.
Private companies based at the airport, too, are flourishing, officials said.
“Our business has increased, especially within the last 18 to 24 months, exponentially,” said Geoff Hodgson, general manager for Scott Aviation, a charter service and flight training company based at DuPage.
During that time, he said, gross revenues have more than quadrupled. The number of employees over the past two years has increased to 40, up from 9. The fleet has grown to 10 corporate jets, up from two, “and that’s strictly to keep up with the demand,” he said.
The company is awaiting approval from the DuPage Airport Authority to build an additional hangar, planned at 35,000 square feet, on the field.
“If you can’t make money at this airport now, you never will,” Hodgson said.
The increase in business–and goodwill–marks a reversal for the airport. A few years ago, taxpayers and politicians complained the airport was wasting thousands of dollars annually, and audits ordered by the state legislature for fiscal 1993 and 1994 confirmed sloppy practices, insufficient planning and wasteful operations.
Since then, the airport has corrected many faults under the leadership of Gordon Cole, who took over as airport director in September 1996 after former Director Thomas Fawell Sr. was dismissed. Eight of the nine members of the airport authority, the government agency overseeing the airport, were replaced in 1994.
Today, corporate travelers, celebrities and athletes use DuPage Airport to save time and ensure more privacy than at a major airport such as O’Hare, officials said.
Actor Bill Murray, the Bulls’ Michael Jordan, former President Jimmy Carter and racecar driver Mario Andretti are among past and current customers. A gaggle of Billy Ray Cyrus fans, decked out in cowboy hats, feathers and fringes, found the country singer before he departed from DuPage Airport one day, airport spokesman Brian Kulpin said. A crabby Roseanne of sitcom fame also came through, ordering a catered meal for her one-block limo ride to a nearby resort. She complained about the food later, he said.
Golfer “Chi Chi Rodriguez had the line guys sitting in his plane, drinking Coke,” Kulpin said, adding that it took a while to find the airport crew.
Corporate executives are not so easy to identify, unless they arrive in a plane such as the red-and-white KFC aircraft. An 8-foot mug of the bespectacled Colonel Sanders adorns the plane’s tail.
More often, executives prefer anonymity, with some arriving in planes listed under a holding company’s name, Kulpin said. Some, such as John Menard, owner of Menards home improvement retail chain, shun the red-carpet treatment, preferring regular-guy status. Occasionally, the chief officers pilot their own single-engine planes.
“The size of the airplane doesn’t always indicate the size of the character in there,” Kulpin said.
When executives are meeting others off company property, a Flight Center conference room serves as a venue for discreet high-powered meetings.
Airport staffers occasionally realize why the officials were in town after reading newspaper business pages the next day.
Penny Loupakos, who oversees the $26 million travel department of Platinum Technology, an Oak Brook-based software company, said the company’s top executives prefer to use airports such as DuPage because of the proximity and time savings.
“It’s no hassle, no traffic, no waiting for departure,” Loupakos said. “You get on board and you’re off. It’s great for an executive who feels time is worth more than money.”
