Avgas prices have dropped enough to garner attention, prompting aircraft owners to ask FBOs if they’ll keep going down like prices at their local car-gas stations. Hoping for $2 avgas is unrealistic, but FBOs around the country told AVweb their posted prices have ticked down in recent months. While they aren’t seeing noticeably higher traffic numbers as a result, they do know their regular customers watch prices and transient pilots like to shop around on 100LL.com. AirNav.com’s survey of about 3600 FBOs, reflecting the last month, shows a national average of $5.37 per gallon of 100LL and $4.82 for Jet A.The low is $3 and the highest is $9.27. In a look around the U.S., most airports are posting prices in the $5 to $5.99 range. Some offer Jet A below $3 and a handful have avgas between $3.23 and $3.99, particularly in the south and southwest.
“The prices have really started coming down over the last two months,” said Adam Wold, aviation services manager for Emery Air at Chicago/Rockford International Airport. Rockford is among a number of FBOs reporting at least a dollar a gallon drop in wholesale prices — now below $3 for avgas in some areas. While the aviation fuel market does trend with auto gas and crude oil markets, there’s a few weeks’ lag time and the changes aren’t as dramatic, according to the FBOs. Crude oil has dropped again this week while supplies are up, according to a Thursday Wall Street Journal report(subscription required). FBOs are telling customers that avgas prices fluctuate also, but not in the same way. “We try to explain to them there’s virtually one source for avgas, and there’s not that much demand,” said Ted Soliday, executive director at Naples Municipal Airport in Florida.
That means other factors come into play when FBOs price their fuel. There’s local competition — a big element for destinations like Naples — but there’s also the cost to buy and ship in a batch. “It’s a niche market,” said Mark Ostermeyer, manager of Shalz Field in Colby, Kansas. He’s posting $4.80 for full-serve avgas, down from the $5.50 to $5.70 range last year. He’d like to stay competitive, but can’t justify going lower as some airports in the region have. “We’re not the lowest, we’re not the highest either,” he said. “We’ve come down but it’s a matter of how far you can come down.” Along the same lines, Emery this week lowered its 100LL retail to $5.08 even though the FBO still has the same load of avgas it bought in early December at a higher price. They’re just “trying to catch up to the market,” Wold said. “We have decided to lower our margin to offer a lower price.”
