Local airport

[AngryChris]

What are your experiences?  How are sales?  I have done several in the past and one now.  Sales seem almost exclusively dependent on if they have flight school programs or skydiving.

[Southeast Treats]

Commercial terminal or general aviation?   GA locations without those other activities bringing in people may not have enough traffic.  But even a small commercial airport can be a very good location if you can get it, lots of staff working long hours and passengers going through.   I also have busy flight school that does well.  On the other end, I had a small GA airport with machines inside the FBO and it was not worth the effort. 

[AngryChris]

53 minutes ago, Southeast Treats said:

Commercial terminal or general aviation?   GA locations without those other activities bringing in people may not have enough traffic.  But even a small commercial airport can be a very good location if you can get it, lots of staff working long hours and passengers going through.   I also have busy flight school that does well.  On the other end, I had a small GA airport with machines inside the FBO and it was not worth the effort. 

I'm not sure what FBO is but this isn't a place with the airliners.  It's all small planes as far as I can tell.  People park their planes there.  I was told they have anywhere from 100-300 people coming through daily but I don't know how that figures into sales. They also have some other programs but again, I don't know how it all translates into sales.  Seems like a busy small airport.

[AZVendor]

The City of Phoenix will put their outlying GA airports out for bid once in a while.  They are always of interest to someone since they have always had vending machines but the consensus is that they mostly very slow locations with the exception of one.  That one good stop is probably why vendors keep bidding on all of them.  I never did because I didn't want one good stop and 3 or 4 bad ones.

[AngryChris]

7 minutes ago, AZVendor said:

The City of Phoenix will put their outlying GA airports out for bid once in a while.  They are always of interest to someone since they have always had vending machines but the consensus is that they mostly very slow locations with the exception of one.  That one good stop is probably why vendors keep bidding on all of them.  I never did because I didn't want one good stop and 3 or 4 bad ones.

This more or less falls in line with my thinking.  It seems like the sales only really exist when there are flight classes or skydiving schools.  One of the ones I do easily does 100-150/week in summer but it only does 40/week in winter when it's just staff and flights.

[Southeast Treats]

FBO is just pilot talk for fixed base operator.  It's a service station for small planes.  Most of the people passing thru won't stay there long enough to buy from the machines.

[AngryChris]

42 minutes ago, Southeast Treats said:

FBO is just pilot talk for fixed base operator.  It's a service station for small planes.  Most of the people passing thru won't stay there long enough to buy from the machines.

Thanks.  That's what I've been thinking.  I'm expecting 95% of sales to be from whomever is on site for hours.