Pilots still can’t use credit cards for fuel at county’s airport
NORWICH – A money-making opportunity at Lt. Warren E. Eaton Airport has been shot down once again.
An automated credit card reader that was procured from an NBT Bank vendor in December after two years of committee discussions now turns out to be incompatible with the county airport’s fueling system.
The apparatus would have made it possible for pilots to purchase fuel independently, 24/7 with a credit card at the pump. Lawmakers planned to advertise the new convenience to pilots, and, hopefully, increase sales. At present, an airport worker must manually operate the machine and, later, bill the purchaser.
The system in place does work partly, according to Airport Administrator Donald W. MacIntosh. Pilots who have a history of purchasing fuel have been given a key to start the pump themselves.
He said the county had “lost only a couple of sales” because pilots couldn’t use their credit cards.
Planning and Economic Development Director David C. Law said the airport could “probably sell more (fuel) once it’s up.”
Fuel sales overall increased last year, Law added, even without the convenience. Nonetheless, sales were less than the $50,000 budgeted for 2010. MacIntosh told his standing committee that he had hoped the credit card system would increase sales.
In his monthly report last month, MacIntosh said overall revenues from t-hangar rentals and fuel sales missed projections by $87,340, so the amount taken from the interest of the airport’s trust fund increased accordingly, from a budgeted $50,000 to $87,340. The charitable trust was created by Lt. Warren E. Eaton Jr. in 1986. It has a market value of more than $550,000.
The contract with FransFirst/NBT was agreed to in mid-December after nearly two years of discussion and review between two government committees and the county’s attorney, Richard W. Breslin, who objected to liability insurance coverage wording in a previously submitted contract from Global Payments Direct, Inc.
Law said it would have been more to the county’s advantage to have a local, and mutually supportive company such as NBT be awarded the contract.
Law previously objected to Breslin’s review of contracts for the system, and even led an unsuccessful effort (16 to 6 votes) at a meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors last fall in order to have the county’s attorney taken out of the decision-making all together.
City of Norwich Ward 1, 2 and 3 Supervisor James J. McNeil, a Democrat, said Global had submitted a standard contract.
“I think it would be two blue moons before a credit processing company and the county attorney can come to an agreement,” he told the board at the same meeting in October. “The fuel is sitting up there. It is convenient to be pumped, but it’s not. Gradually the money we have stockpiled for the airport will be whittled down.”
MacIntosh said he informed Breslin of the new problem in a letter March 4, but so far hadn’t heard back from him on how to proceed. He said there were only three equipment manufacturers that made compatible credit card readers.
“It looks like we’re back to Global,” he said.
Chairman Richard B. Decker said he didn’t know how many pilots were “just going to stop in at the airport just to fuel up anyway.” He complained that the pumping system installed years ago by the airport’s fixed base operator “has been a mess from day one.”
“Why does it have to be so difficult?” he asked.
An automated credit card reader that was procured from an NBT Bank vendor in December after two years of committee discussions now turns out to be incompatible with the county airport’s fueling system.
The apparatus would have made it possible for pilots to purchase fuel independently, 24/7 with a credit card at the pump. Lawmakers planned to advertise the new convenience to pilots, and, hopefully, increase sales. At present, an airport worker must manually operate the machine and, later, bill the purchaser.
The system in place does work partly, according to Airport Administrator Donald W. MacIntosh. Pilots who have a history of purchasing fuel have been given a key to start the pump themselves.
He said the county had “lost only a couple of sales” because pilots couldn’t use their credit cards.
Planning and Economic Development Director David C. Law said the airport could “probably sell more (fuel) once it’s up.”
Fuel sales overall increased last year, Law added, even without the convenience. Nonetheless, sales were less than the $50,000 budgeted for 2010. MacIntosh told his standing committee that he had hoped the credit card system would increase sales.
In his monthly report last month, MacIntosh said overall revenues from t-hangar rentals and fuel sales missed projections by $87,340, so the amount taken from the interest of the airport’s trust fund increased accordingly, from a budgeted $50,000 to $87,340. The charitable trust was created by Lt. Warren E. Eaton Jr. in 1986. It has a market value of more than $550,000.
The contract with FransFirst/NBT was agreed to in mid-December after nearly two years of discussion and review between two government committees and the county’s attorney, Richard W. Breslin, who objected to liability insurance coverage wording in a previously submitted contract from Global Payments Direct, Inc.
Law said it would have been more to the county’s advantage to have a local, and mutually supportive company such as NBT be awarded the contract.
Law previously objected to Breslin’s review of contracts for the system, and even led an unsuccessful effort (16 to 6 votes) at a meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors last fall in order to have the county’s attorney taken out of the decision-making all together.
City of Norwich Ward 1, 2 and 3 Supervisor James J. McNeil, a Democrat, said Global had submitted a standard contract.
“I think it would be two blue moons before a credit processing company and the county attorney can come to an agreement,” he told the board at the same meeting in October. “The fuel is sitting up there. It is convenient to be pumped, but it’s not. Gradually the money we have stockpiled for the airport will be whittled down.”
MacIntosh said he informed Breslin of the new problem in a letter March 4, but so far hadn’t heard back from him on how to proceed. He said there were only three equipment manufacturers that made compatible credit card readers.
“It looks like we’re back to Global,” he said.
Chairman Richard B. Decker said he didn’t know how many pilots were “just going to stop in at the airport just to fuel up anyway.” He complained that the pumping system installed years ago by the airport’s fixed base operator “has been a mess from day one.”
“Why does it have to be so difficult?” he asked.
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