Business development at the Sand Springs Airport

A big new venture is getting ready to take off at Sand Springs Airport. You didn't know Sand Springs had an airport? Well, as News on 6 reporter Steve Berg explains, you're not alone. <br/><br/>"It's

Wednesday, January 25th 2006, 9:55 am

By: News On 6

A big new venture is getting ready to take off at Sand Springs Airport. You didn't know Sand Springs had an airport? Well, as News on 6 reporter Steve Berg explains, you're not alone.

"It's been a well-kept secret, and I don't know why, but it has been." Dwayne Lewis is talking about the Pogue Airport in Sand Springs. It's been around since the early 70's and it has a huge runway and he says is often a shorter drive to downtown Tulsa than either Riverside or Tulsa International Airport, but hardly anybody uses it. "It was the most underutilized airport that I could see."

One reason is it lacks hangars and a Fixed Base of Operations, or FBO for short. So guess what Lewis is building? "You'll fly in, you'll pull in, we'll open the door, you'll get out, we'll accommodate you with catering, with rent-a-cars, if you need a limousine."

The Platinum Air Building will also have a conference center. Executive types could do all their business here without ever leaving the airport. And the big concern with business, he says, is always time. "In the corporate aviation business, it's all about money versus time."

Planes use hundreds of gallons an hour, even sitting on the runway, so Lewis says at a more crowded airport, even a 10 or 15 minute wait can be costly. "Here, you can be in your airplane and out the minute your engines are up and running."

Lewis sees Sand Springs, even downtown Tulsa benefiting from companies looking for a place to set up shop. He says Kimberly Clark is a good example. "When they were looking at putting plants in at Bixby, that was one of the reasons why they put in that multi-million dollar plant because they had free parking for all their corporate jets at Riverside Airport."