Phoenix Faces Super Bowl Parking Woe Where to Put Gulfstreams
Phoenix Faces Super Bowl Parking Woe: Where to Put Gulfstreams?
By Aaron Kuriloff
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — Parking a car in the Phoenix area
during the Feb. 3 Super Bowl will be hard enough, says Stan
Raskow. Try finding a place to put your plane.
Raskow says he and about 200 other pilots who use Glendale
Municipal Airport were told they would have to relocate their
planes for a week. The airport, three miles away from University
of Phoenix Stadium, needs to accommodate private jets flying in
the well-heeled for the National Football League;s title game.
Along with $4,300 tickets and hour-long security lines at
the game, fans on private planes may face traffic jams at local
airports including Glendale, Phoenix Deer Valley, Goodyear and
Scottsdale, all within 30 miles of the stadium. Corporate air
travel to the game has surged and this time is compounded by a
professional golf tournament the same weekend.
“Some of these jets cost upward of $40 million apiece,;;
said Matthew Wright, general manager for Atlantic Aviation, one
of two fixed-base operators landing corporate planes at Phoenix
Deer Valley. “Their owners probably feel some kind of
entitlement, and they probably are entitled, to some extent. We
try to accommodate everybody.;;
The Arizona host committee expects 800 to 1,000 private
jets, or more, to use the airports before Sunday;s game. That
will be at least double the number when nearby Tempe was the
site of the Super Bowl in 1996.
Upgrading Airports
The football game attracts more corporate chiefs and their
clients and colleagues in small planes than almost any other
sporting event, said Robert Tuchman, founder of TSE Sports %26amp;
Entertainment. His New York-based company specializes in
corporate travel to events such as the Super Bowl, golf;s
Masters Tournament and the Daytona 500 auto race. He started
making reservations at Phoenix area airports months ago.
“`We;re sending over 1,000 corporate executives to the
Super Bowl this year,;; Tuchman said in a telephone interview.
“When you;ve got that many people on the executive level coming
into town, you want to take care of those quickly.;;
The corporate fan base is big this year because the teams
are from New York and Boston, two of the largest U.S.
metropolitan areas, Tuchman says. The game also takes place on
the same weekend as Scottsdale;s FBR Open, the U.S. PGA Tour;s
best-attended event.
Regional airports and their service providers have spent
months upgrading facilities and preparing for the influx.
Atlantic Aviation just completed renovating its building at Deer
Valley, the nation;s busiest general aviation airport, about 20
miles north of downtown Phoenix.
Agreement Reached
“Any wall that was in the old facility, we tore it down,;;
Wright said. “We pretty much started over from scratch — new
carpet, new tile, new furnishings, a new landscaped courtyard.;;
Ten to 20 private planes take off and land on an average
day this time of year, Wright said. He estimates the number will
reach 225 on Super Bowl Sunday. He;s pitching a tent between
hangers, rolling out a big-screen television and hosting a
barbeque for pilots and crews.
Phoenix-based Rightpath Limited;s facility at Glendale
Airport will open a renovated facility today. It added a glass
atrium, luxury passenger lounges with big-screen plasma
televisions and a concierge service.
As for the Glendale airport;s mandate that regularly parked
planes be relocated, Raskow, 63, said he and about 80 pilots
formed the Glendale Pilots Association. With backing from the
414,000-member national Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association,
the group pressed the airport to change its plans.
The Exodus
“You couldn;t fly in or out for seven days,;; Raskow said.
“It was ridiculous.;;
The airport agreed to make relocation voluntary, found
spaces for some planes at neighboring airports and offered
incentives to move, Raskow says.
Julie Frisoni, a spokeswoman for the city of Glendale,
which runs the airport, said pilots agreed to relocate their
planes voluntarily, and the city paid gas and tie-down fees
for those who wanted to store their aircraft at other airports.
“The Super Bowl is going to come and go but these pilots
will hopefully be with us for a long time,;; she said.
Now Raskow;s group is helping the airport prepare for the
game and asking pilots not to fly to reduce congestion, he says.
Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, who traveled to Phoenix by
corporate jet, said the biggest air traffic problem doesn;t
happen in the days leading up to the game.
“When that game;s over and a lot of people who;ve flown on
private planes want to go home and everybody feels that they;re
entitled to be the first to take off, that;s when it gets
interesting,;; Tisch said in an interview. “A lot of people are
saying to their pilots to tell the tower, `Do you know who I;ve
got on my plane?;;;
To contact the reporter on this story:
Aaron Kuriloff in New York at
