With Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis, left, and Premier Jet President Richard Lee Sax looking on, Supervisor Bill Horn prepares to christen with champagne the start of a $33 million aviation center at McClellan-Palomar Airport.

A photographer lies in a pit choreographing Supervisor Bill Horn’s preparations to break a bottle of champagne and christen the start of construction on the $33 million upgrade to the Premier Jet Business Aviation Center at McClellan-Palomar Airport. Around the corner workers at Jet Source are putting the finishing touches on an $8 million amenity-rich upgrade that includes a 100-inch television and DVD collection in the pilot’s lounge. Nearby is Magellan Aviation, home to the airport’s largest corporate aviation provider, the 14-plane Schubach Aviation. It also is where Magellan next month will break ground on a $19 million expansion.

The North County is awash in luxury air travel.

“At the time I started operating here (in 1990) there was really one other operator,” says Henry Schubach. “I ended up owning part of that company before we sold it.” Schubach hired his first full-time employee five years ago and today has 40 employees working from 35,000 square feet of leased hangar space and a nearby office. And he is no longer alone.

While Palomar’s major Fixed Base Operators, or FBOs as they call themselves, scramble to meet the growing needs of North County’s industry and its rich and intentionally non-famous, Jimsair Aviation Services Inc., a 55-year-old business at Lindbergh Field, is operating in what one former customer called a trailer and a hangar.

Henry Schubach, who hired his first full-time employee five years ago, today has 14 aircraft for charter as the corporate aviation business booms. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

The Downtown market is rich in opportunity, with the private aviation clientele ranging from VIPs who whisk in for engagements at the San Diego Convention Center to business executives and leading politicians such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneger. Conceived in 1996, Jimsair’s privately-financed $17.5 million proposal to serve luxury fliers with a first class facility like those at Palomar is stalled. The company, founded by Peruvian immigrant Santiago “Jim” Bracamonte, who died in August after a lengthy illness, is run by his sons, Phil and Michael. The firm’s expansion engines were cooled early this decade when the San Diego Unified Port District pushed aside the project and lease extension discussions while it worked with the fledgling San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, to which state law had given control of the airport. After taking command on Jan. 1, 2003, the authority initiated a master plan designed to keep the airport functioning while a replacement was selected and then built.

“We are starting over with the airport authority,” says Phil Bracamonte, president of Jimsair. “We are patiently waiting for them to get their master plan done. We are hoping they are close in finishing the master plan and the airport layout. We want to put a new lease together and complete the expansion. They want to make sure our plan fits in with their plan.”

Once permits are issued, Bracamonte says, it will take 12 months to build a new terminal, a year longer for the hangars because of environmental study requirements. The work will be financed through commercial loans.

The Jimsair project has a chance to get moving again next month when the authority board considers a $536.1 million to $576.6 million master plan to enhance Lindbergh so it can meet demand for at least the next 20 years. The plan includes $24 million for overhauling what is called the North Area, the property off Pacific Highway where Jimsair is located along with some air cargo operations. (The funds do not include the $17.5 million Jimsair would spend.) The plan also considers adding a second FBO, which Jimsair says it would not object to if the lease terms were similar.

Barbara Warden, president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, says the upgrade is important to the Downtown economy. “With our booming residential and hopefully more high-end corporations coming here, we have to realize that our airport needs to accommodate the needs of the special flier, and they are often flying in on private jets,” Warden says.

Jimsair’s proposal would add 174,240 square feet of hangar space, doubling the number of hangars to six and including the construction of a new restaurant, corporate space and terminal. The hangar space is important as Jimsair today is essentially full, with seven aircraft, three belonging to the company, and room for only one light jet. Space has been an issue in the past with wealthy jet owners encouraged to park their corporate craft elsewhere. “We have four corporate aircraft here,” says Richard Cloward, charter manager for Jimsair. “We could easily double that number.”

The project also has a sizeable economic impact. In 2003 Jimsair employed 81 people at an average hourly salary of $17.95 and did $14.4 million of business, generating a regional economic impact of $27.8 million. Keyser Marston Associates Inc. projects the expanded operation would employ 171, do $18.9 million of business each year and have a regional economic impact of $36.4 million.

With an expanded leasehold totaling 623,625 square feet, rent to the airport authority would increase by $435,374 to $1.25 million annually. To amortize its investment, Jimsair is seeking a lease of 25 years. (It has seven years remaining on its existing lease.)

Tight Quarters

Lindbergh Field, which is how most locals refer to San Diego International Airport, has constraints, which is why voters will be asked in November 2006 to select a replacement airport, or perhaps even an expansion of Lindbergh. The airport handled 209,000 takeoffs and landings last year, a number expected to hit 260,000 between 2015 and 2022, resulting in regular runway congestion and delays. If nothing is done, between 2021 and 2030 the airport will max out at 300,000 annual operations with delays for passengers common.

More than 16 million people passed through its terminals last year. The master plan set for discussion next month will add 10 new passenger gates by 2010. But it won’t add a new runway.

About 8 percent of the flights at Lindbergh are for corporate aviation and they are growing at less than 2 percent annually, slower than commercial aviation. While the hub of corporate aviation in San Diego is Palomar, FBOs can meet the needs of a small number of private jets at Montgomery and Gillespie fields as well. At 614 acres, Lindbergh may be the nation’s smallest big-city airport, but it is the only option for commercial jets. If the authority seems more concerned about commercial than corporate jets, there is a reason.

“One operation eats up as much time as a jumbo jet,” says Ted Anasis, manager of airport operations.

Yet improved commercial aviation services are a key amenity for Downtown’s efforts to grow and attract large companies.

The delays are tough for Jimsair. “It is frustrating,” says Jack Monger, the government consultant hired by the company. “I can’t say it is anybody’s fault, just some horribly bad luck that Jimsair has experienced. They have needed this for some time since they are the front doorstep for San Diego for a lot of aviation.”

Jimsair Through The Ages

Jimsair President Phil Bracamonte is anxious to start a $17.5 million corporate aviation center at Lindbergh Field. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

Since relocating in 1952 from the old Del Mar Airport to Lindbergh, Jimsair has proved adept at changing with the times. Phil Bracamonte, 57, says that after his father opened a mechanics shop, he expanded into flight training, rentals and sales of aircraft and fuel. In the 1960s the charter operation included 117 aircraft, from a Cessna 150 to a DC-3. “We used the smaller airplanes for training and rentals and the larger airplanes were used for charter,” Bracamonte says.

As light jets were introduced to the market in the 1970s, the use of turbine aircraft increased and piston aircraft — the smaller planes — fell. When a PSA jet collided with a private single-engine Cessna on instrument training in 1978, it was the beginning of the end for most light aircraft at the airport. “The nature of our business changed,” says Bracamonte, who got his start sweeping floors and was flying at age 16. “We began to phase out flight training, rentals and aircraft sales. We got to the point where we phased out maintenance. By the time we reached 1990 we were out of the charter business also. Essentially we were retailing fuel, parking and hangars and providing fueling services to the airlines.”

In 2001, the company re-entered the charter business to meet demand and now owns three aircraft and has five pilots. That part of the business is growing but most of the activity surrounds fueling and providing parking for visiting corporate jets.

Lindbergh is an important corporate aviation asset, Bracamonte says. Its biggest assets are its location adjacent to Downtown, its 9,400-foot-long runway that allows the largest corporate jets to top off their tanks and fly to New York and the security that comes with its designation as an international airport.

“During the Super Bowl we had 465 aircraft,” Bracamonte says. “That is an example of the importance of the corporate world. In the future, San Diego is going to have bigger conventions than we have now because the Convention Center has been expanded. We have a wonderful Downtown and the biotech and telecom industries just keep growing. We are going to see more of these businesses coming in. If you have a major corporation relocating to San Diego, one of the questions they are going to ask is, ‘Where can we keep our airplanes?’ Today, there is not a lot in the way of choices.”