There is a version of FBO management that feels like success — consistent revenue, a recognisable name, a ramp that's usually occupied. And then there is a version of what that same FBO is actually capable of, which in Anthony Banome's experience is almost always 50% higher. Not in five years. In twelve months. Banome has spent his career at properties like Meridian at Teterboro and Fountain Blue in Opa-locka, and he has developed a consistent read on the gap: it exists at nearly every independent FBO he walks into, and the cause is almost never insufficient capacity. It is insufficient clarity about what the existing capacity should be producing.

The Slow Growth Assumption

The standard FBO pro forma looks something like this: $1M EBITDA this year, $1.1M next, $1.2M the year after. A reasonable 10% annual growth trajectory that compounds into something meaningful over time. Banome's challenge to that model: in the time it takes to reach $1.5M through organic growth on that trajectory, an FBO that resets its focus and measures its actual potential could have been at $1.5M or more in under 12 months. The slow growth assumption is not just conservative — it is actively costing these operators the revenue and compounding growth that comes from operating at the right level sooner.

The reason this matters beyond the revenue number is that an FBO operating at $1.5M EBITDA is a different business than one at $1M. Different accounts are available to it. Different loan structures are accessible. Different strategic conversations are possible. The graduation from one level to the next is not just financial — it is operational, and the decisions available at the higher level are categorically different from those available at the lower one.

What Most FBOs Are Actually Measuring

When Banome walks into an FBO for the first time, he looks at what they track. The answer is almost always the same: gallons, hangar rent, and a miscellaneous bucket that catches everything else. These are not wrong things to measure. They are insufficient ones. The picture that emerges from gallons and rent is a blended average that hides the individual performance of each demographic, each account, and each square foot of property.

The metrics that reveal the actual picture are more granular: margin per gallon broken out by customer type — home-based tenants, transient traffic, cargo, government — rather than averaged together. Real estate utilisation measured not by occupancy percentage but by what each square foot should generate compared to what it does. Movement share relative to the airport total, not just absolute volume. Wait list depth by aircraft category, which tells you both the quality of your current accounts and the competitive pressure you are or aren't defending against. These are available to any FBO willing to build the structure. Most haven't.

The Real Estate Comes First

The first thing Banome assesses in any engagement is real estate utilisation. The instinct among experienced FBO operators is often to look at underperformance and conclude that more space is the answer. Three hangars at 80% occupancy? Build three more. Banome's counterargument is direct: if three existing hangars are running at 50 to 75% of their revenue potential, building three more does not solve the problem. It doubles it — at significant capital cost and time. The correct sequence is to understand what the current property can produce before committing to more of it.

He describes a specific example from Fountain Blue, where a hangar was scheduled to be rebuilt on the exact footprint of its predecessor. By rotating the orientation of the new structure — effectively flipping a Tetris piece — the ramp maintained its width, could accommodate larger aircraft, and was positioned for the growth Miami was about to experience. That single decision, made before construction began, bought years of competitive advantage at no additional cost. The inverse — building on the intuitive footprint without considering the downstream implications — would have constrained the FBO for the life of the structure.

The 12-Month Process

Banome is consistent about what phase one of an FBO performance improvement actually looks like: it does not require capital investment. It requires building the data infrastructure to understand what you have, what each element of it should produce, and where the gaps are. This is the work that almost always reveals the 50% gap. Not all at once, and not through a single decision — but through the accumulation of smaller corrections that each add a few percentage points back to the operation.

A King Air that has been flying in regularly and never taking fuel because the price is slightly high. Adjust the price, add 44,000 gallons a year. A hangar tenant doing 25,000 gallons instead of the 50,000 projected when their lease was written. Have the documented expectation conversation. An account at a blended rate that was set based on one demographic's needs and applied to several others. Break it apart. These are not dramatic interventions — they are the natural result of having a clear picture of what each account should produce, and addressing what the data shows. The cumulative effect of doing enough of them is the 50% gain.

The owner of an independent FBO deserves to know what their property is actually capable of. That knowledge is not complicated to obtain — it requires committing to a measurement framework, being willing to read what the data says even when it challenges comfortable assumptions, and having the patience to see a 12-month process through.

Anthony Banome's summary: understand, measure, execute. In that order.

Full episode available at: https://flyironbird.com/private_jet_podcast/why-most-fbos-are-leaving-millions-on-the-runway.

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