Double R Flo-Town

Round Trip: Brad Beadles of FLYFLO is back to talk runways, rails, and region growth

Robert Thomas & Reeves Cannon Season 1 Episode 26

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0:00 | 30:19

Brad returns to Double R Flo-Town with a big update on the future of Florence Regional Airport. From rail access and foreign trade zone plans to cargo opportunities, a possible D.C. route, and a long-term vision for economic growth, this conversation looks at how the airport could become one of the Pee Dee’s most important assets. If Florence gets this right, the impact could be felt for decades.

Why The Rail Line Matters

SPEAKER_02

Double R Flow Town. We've got our first repeat guest because he's the man and he's making stuff happen. Brother Brad, thank you for coming back.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_02

I think you kind of reached out and said you have some cool stuff to talk about.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. We're making some headway on a lot of critical projects at the airport.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Um, just to give you an idea, um, it came to our attention that about 1970s, 80s, the rail line that used to go to Post in South Carolina. If you guys know where that is, I don't, but I looked it up. Yeah. So the the line comes off the main spur right across from the airport and went directly along the western uh portion of our property line.

SPEAKER_02

Because it goes over the road, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's that overpass that goes over by ag supply.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so uh we found the deeds to that. Um, it's deeded to the airport, and so we had uh a couple contractors come out and look into what it would cost to rehab that, and so um I'm sure it's very inexpensive. Uh well, in all reality, you know, if you look, that overpass was built in 1928. I think it had some work done in the 70s and then it kind of just disappeared, right?

Reeves

It's not really been in use, it hasn't been in use.

SPEAKER_00

So uh a company came out that has done a lot of work in South Carolina with uh rail bridges and things, and they said, dude, it's in really good condition. Awesome. And they said, So you're only paying two to four million instead of twenty-five to thirty. Okay, and so now they're starting geotechnical and and all that, all their engineering jazz on you know what it's actually gonna take to rehab that overpass.

Reeves

That is so what does having rail on the backside

Direct Rail-To-Plane Freight Vision

Reeves

of the airport, what does that really do for us?

SPEAKER_00

So so there's a lot of things. If you look, you know, um, take Greenville, Spartanburg, and I always talk about them because really that airport did so much for Greenville and Spartanburg, right? Yeah, they're just they're blowing up right now.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so their rail line goes up, it's about a mile and a half, 1.3 miles off of their airport. Ours is directly on our airport. So what does that mean? Well, you cut out freight forwarders, right? You have direct rail to plane, plane to rail access. So you could essentially sip some something into Charleston port, bring it to Florence, load it on a plane, and get it.

SPEAKER_02

We're coming for you, Greenville.

SPEAKER_00

We're coming for you. We're trying, uh just trying to emulate, right? Uh friendly competition. But um the other part of that is, you know, you you listen to Charleston, you hear about the traffic, right? The bridge traffic. Yeah. So even if you wanted to take that up by rail, bring it to flow, and get it to trucks, what do we have right outside of Florence? Direct access to two interstates right now east-west.

SPEAKER_02

I would think Charleston would like that.

Reeves

This is what ticks we should have been Greenville Spartanburg, but we had defunct leadership. Yes. I mean, it's pathetic the leadership we've had. Yes, that we did not capitalize on that before.

SPEAKER_02

Like you said earlier, you you're you're dealing with 20 years of trying to get back to the be probably below status quo. Probably, yeah.

Reeves

You're being nice.

SPEAKER_00

I'm trying.

SPEAKER_02

Um we're ramping up now, dude.

SPEAKER_00

I mean you and and here's the thing is um you have all

Foreign Trade Zone And Customs

SPEAKER_00

this, right? So we get the foreign trade zone, which we talked about a little earlier, right? So every other you know, county besides the PD has a foreign trade zone.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit because that's super interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So so if you look at the foreign trade zone map, um Charleston Port Authority has I'm gonna I'm gonna butcher this. Um, foreign trade zone 38 and and 24, which is Charleston and Greenville.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you see that coming in. You're like foreign trade zone. Yeah, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00

Yep, and then Columbia has their own foreign trade zone that has, we'll just say 12, 12 counties. Okay, right? Well, when the enabling legislation came out, Columbia had verbiage in there that they could be the grantee of their own foreign trade zone. So that means the companies in the in that area can just apply for that foreign trade zone through Columbia Airport, right? And so we we did a deep dive and figured out how can we do that, right? And so we're on we're in that process. We are approved to be a UFF, which is a user fee facility, which means we will have customs and border patrol at the airport full time, you know, 40 hours a week, um, which technically makes us an international airport. But don't tell my marketing director that because if he has to change everything to international, he'll he'll he'll kill me. But uh I think it might be wrong, maybe. Yeah. Um, but so that does uh quite a few things for us. One, uh, we could do international flights. Now, will we ever? I don't know. But what what I think what I think is how many people would take a charter flight to the Bahamas or to St. Martin for the weekend if you could get on-demand charter service. Sign me up because you don't have to stop at Charleston, you know, to go through customs anymore. It's right there. So you could literally go to the airport, you know, 15, 20 minute drive, go through customs, hop on a plane, be in the Bahamas and billboard on interstate, like showing flying to the Bahamas from flow.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

Reeves

That right Robert, you're gonna I'm gonna fly on your plane. You're gonna fly me wherever I want to start flying private.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes. Well, that's the whole point of being wealthy is to fly private. That's the only reason you're the only reason. Um, but and then also the the other part of that is then customs and border patrol being on the airport, they can inspect international cargo.

SPEAKER_02

Nice, right?

SPEAKER_00

So now that's the whole point is if companies, businesses want to come to Florence and they need airport access or direct rail access, we now have that. And we have so now we have direct rail access with plane, right? With runways on the airport. We have a foreign trade zone, we have an inland port in Dillon, yeah, and we have access to two major interstates.

SPEAKER_02

You're about to fix the traffic problem in Charleston. Uh well, I it's insane to me when I'm driving around Charleston and I see these big trucks going in. It's like, this is insane.

SPEAKER_00

It well, and so I found out too is Charlotte did the same thing. Uh so Charlotte, Norfolk Southern, used to go directly downtown. So all the trucks would have to try to get out of downtown Charlotte. So what happened is Charlotte Airport and Norfolk Southern partnered up and built the train track to Charlotte International Airport, which now, if you look at a map at Charleston or at uh Charlotte, there's probably two, 300 can shipping containers sitting on airport property. They are basically

Master Plan For The Next Decade

SPEAKER_00

their own inland port.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_00

And so, and there's one stoplight, and then where are they at? In Interstate, right? Instead of trying to fight the traffic to get out of town. And that's your vision. And that's that's my vision.

Reeves

And so you and our current government leaders, I mean, we've got some good guys now who are working on this with you to really help rec recognize the the strategic spot that Florence sits to boost the economic power that we have at our fingertips.

SPEAKER_00

And that's that's my point is don't try to be something you're not. Yeah, right. And so I know we'll never be a hub for Delta or United, right? Nor do we really want to be. Do we want, you know, three million people living in Florence? Um, but we want a very convenient airport, yeah, right. So if we had, you know, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Orlando, Charlotte, we're good, right? That that's perfect because then you can still get in the airport, get on your flight and you know, 45 minutes and call it a day. What we can do, and what I'm trying to get to the community and the PD region is we can be this economic engine, right? Um, we can have, you know, MROs. Like I think I read an article the other day, Sky West built a maintenance facility in Celina, Kansas, right? We could do that same thing, right? Because now we have rail access, we're getting longer runways. So we can start being more business incentivizing than airline incentivizing. That makes sense, and that's gonna bring the airlines to us. And you know what I mean? Because the more people that are here, you got to think all these businesses that come in the airport are good paying jobs. It's the people you want living in your community, right? Yeah, and and they're using local businesses, they're you can use in local restaurants and hotels and all that good stuff, definitely, right? They're paying property taxes, they're they're putting money back into the community. That's what we need. You said MRO.

Reeves

What's an MRO?

SPEAKER_00

Uh a maintenance, oh god, uh sorry, a maintenance repair operation. Operation. Maintenance. We have all these accuracy, so there's SASA, which is like specialized aviation facility, and the only one we know is FLO.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That's the only one. That's hey, that's the only one that matters that happen.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, but but getting those on the airport, again, you know, you get these good paying jobs, you bring these people in. Um, luckily, you know, Greg Robinson has uh him and his team. Oh, yeah. Uh, we just sat down yesterday and did a complete master plan of the airport about what it could look like in the next 10 years. And so we're gonna start getting that out there so people can visualize. Wait a minute, we got this asset here, why aren't we utilize utilizing it?

Reeves

So that that vision of what the airport can look like, can you give us any sneak peeks as to what that is?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so we we basically um I put together what we call like a CIP plan, which is a capital uh improvement plan, right? So these are projects that we take to uh our ADO in Atlanta, which is airport district office, and we say, Hey, this is what we foresee in the future, right? And they sign off on that and say, Yep, we see this, we see this. And so I took that and we're basically uh went to Greg and I said, Hey, this is what I'm envisioning. Me and Greg and his team went back and forth and and really got it on a visual scale is okay,

Grants, State Funds, Local Support

SPEAKER_00

with rail, with an extended runway, with a foreign trade zone, you know, with warehousing and and all these things here, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Do we have the money in place to start executing this? I heard you took a little trip to Washington. Yes. What was that, a month ago or something? Uh yeah, it was how'd that go?

SPEAKER_00

It went well. Um, you know, I think I think the first thing was uh, of course, we're asking for a new terminal. Our terminal was built in 1993. It's very hard to compete for air service when you know airports are building 40-foot, you know, flowing waterfalls and and and you know, I mean, everything now is about customer experience at airports. You know, there's creeks running through airports at this point, and and and we're just happy to have you know a micro market um to where people can buy buy drinks and chips. I need a pocket. Yeah, put a microwave. So so really we we wanted to hit on that first and foremost. Because the other aspect of this, and this is why I push this so hard, is you have to support the airport. Because so, say there's a a $30 million project, and the FAA says, you know what, we're gonna give you 90% of that project, right? Um, we still got to have those matching matching funds. And so, you know where the majority of our revenue comes from? Airlines, parking. For every ticket people buy, we get $4.50 called a passenger facility charge. We get landing fees, we get ticket, you know, office rent, we get gate space rent, all these things.

SPEAKER_02

That's how it builds.

SPEAKER_00

And that's how our revenue builds. So we want air service just as bad as the community. It's just no one since Delta left in 2011 has really tried to bring another airline.

SPEAKER_02

How do we get that initial cash infusion to get this baby rolling?

SPEAKER_00

So, so right now we luckily we're uh we're applying for a lot of grants, you know, a lot of things that can help us move forward. Um, we're you know, the government's the government. We're we're waiting to hear back on some of those. We've got a grant in for the rail, we got a grant in for the terminal, which we're really excited about. We think that we're gonna get into that um airport terminal program, is what it's called. Cool. So it's dedicated funds specifically for terminals. Nice. And so we could be starting construction on a new terminal beginning next year.

Reeves

Is there such a world where you have government funding and government grants? You have end user revenue from buying tickets and parking and things, and then a third bucket from private business and private individuals who see the vision and say, you know what, I'm gonna write a five million dollar check for the airport. Is that possible?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, and I tell you, there's there's uh another aspect to that too, is the state, right? So we have South Carolina Aeronautics Commission. Um and I I I hate to preach this, but I'm still a little hurt. So last year, the state received $80 million SCAC from that commission. From yep, from the SCAC goes out every year, and they've been asking for $100 million to put towards the commercial service airport. Okay, right for South Carolina, for South Carolina, and then uh they disperse those funds, and we got we got zero zero out of eighty million dollars, the largest funding the state has ever received. We got zero, and we got zero. Um that's a lack of of vision. Well, and and it a lot of that is on us too for not paying attention. Um, and so we got, you know, I I reached out to our local delegation, and whenever I brought it, you know, I said, hey guys, what's going on? Yeah. So they started looking into it. We're trying to remediate that this year.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we know now that's gonna there will be another bucket of money.

SPEAKER_00

So now this year, um, they have asked for another hundred million. Last I heard, that's about at 60 or 70. Okay. Um, we don't know what that's gonna be in, of course, until like June or July. But we're ready, we're ready now. But now our local delegation is is keeping an eye very closely on that. And that and and that's that just goes to show you that the airport has been that overlooked, right? That we weren't even we weren't even in the conversation, right? And so now that we got all these people with eyes on the airport, um, I think you're gonna see a lot more, hopefully, a lot more funding coming through so we can do some of these much needed processes.

Reeves

And that's one of the things you said last time you were on the podcast, and again, congrats on being the first repeat guest. I mean, yeah, I'm you're famous just because of that, Brand. We got you a present.

SPEAKER_02

We got you a present. Yes, I love it.

Reeves

Yeah, we we can only right now fly to Charlotte. Yep, and no one in Florence flies to Charlotte because they're going to Charlotte. We can drive there if we want to spend a couple of days in Charlotte. Right. But so if we could get a flight to Nashville or DC or Orlando, somewhere that you actually want

New Routes And The DC Push

Reeves

to go to and stay, yeah, that would be a game changer for the residents and the other counties around that really service the airport. How feasible is that gonna be?

SPEAKER_00

So I can't I can't give up too much information, but um I we have been in discussion with Sky West under the United blanket. Okay. Um, because Sky West can fly for United, Delta, and America, right? But because they have some open gate space in Dulles, which is DC, um, we started talking to Sky West about getting a DC flight because it's perfect because it's about uh so you know, as a regional carrier, they don't like to fly more than like 600 miles. Okay, right? Um, and that's even a kind of a stretch. Um, and so DC, I think, is right there. It's right between three and four hundred miles um uh uh for a trip. So we got with them, unfortunately, our load factors aren't good enough for them to even really consider it. So what what we did was is we offered them what we call a minimum revenue guarantee.

SPEAKER_02

Nice.

SPEAKER_00

And so uh for instance, if that flight, and I'm just gonna make it easy on math because math is not my strong. So um, so say that flight cost uh a hundred thousand dollars a month. Okay, if they make over that, great. But if they make 80,000, then we have a bucket of money that where we pay what they lost. So we'll pay them the $20,000, right? But that cannot be airport funded because otherwise you're subsidizing your own air service. So what we had to do was go out to the community, to the county, to the city, to the state and say, hey, look, we got this opportunity to have our second air carrier at Florence for the first time in 14 years. Wow. Right? We need some funding. And, you know, the one I say the one positive thing that I can strongly say about Florence is when people need you, people gather. Right. I mean, honestly, because we're such a small community, you reach out to one person, they'll reach out to 10, and then you're flooded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. What do you need? Why do you need it? How does it work? And so the county and the city have both been very great to work with. Um, and now the local delegation and you know, Philip Lowe and Jay Jordan, some of them have just been so instrumental in going to the state saying, hey, we have this opportunity. Can we get an earmark for this?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so I see, I I really now we had this pretty much hemmed up to where we were gonna start contract negotiations until the Iran conflict happened. And so what happened? No one can determine what fuel prices are, right? So no one wants to write a contract saying, hey, you know, we think fuel's gonna be $80 a barrel when one week it's 110 and the next week it's 70. You know, we we don't know what's going on. And so we're kind of playing that game right now. Uh, but as soon as I think that gets stable, I think we, you know, we're gonna be a lot in a better position to get a contract with Sky West. And that would be the best part about it is that's a three-year commitment for a twice-daily flight to DC.

SPEAKER_02

That'd be awesome.

Reeves

That would be awesome. And that's, I mean, I we were talking in the office yesterday. I don't know if you were in the office, Robert, but Kevin is talking about going to DC.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he's just gonna drive.

Reeves

And he's driving, but to be able to fly there, that's where someone wants to go. We we went last spring break to DC, took our kids. We'd have flown if we'd have had that option. Yep. It's those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02

We're not gonna fly to Charlotte to but then from DC you can go anywhere pretty easy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, pretty easy, right? And Dulles is actually very easy airport, right?

SPEAKER_02

Um they're talking about a big upgrade to Dulles.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Well, Trump wants to name it after he wants to name it after him, but yeah, uh, he doesn't tell him we'll name ours after them.

SPEAKER_02

Donald Trump international airport in form. His big airport.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but yeah, I think and and also if and I look at it as another way is people are constantly traveling to DC for lobbying purposes, or like you said, for vacation. There's so much to see in DC for vacation, right? Smithsonian, all those things. Um usually we see a decline in air traffic in January and February because the holidays have passed, right? Well, what are people doing in January and February? They're already starting their uptick and going to DC and getting, you know, starting to get that funding, you know, starting to have those conversations. So we really think this is a route that will succeed.

SPEAKER_02

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

And that's the main thing, right? We don't, it's not like I'm gonna pitch a route to you know, Hawaii, right? Probably not gonna do well in Florence. But honestly, I think Dulles is a slam dunk. I realize that's exciting.

Reeves

I mean, we we ran in, you and I ran into each other at the gym, you know, the morning you were heading out to DC. Um, and I'm just so excited to hear all that's going on. I mean, it really does seem like you and the delegation, y'all really have your head around what this airport can do now.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, absolutely. And and you know, the big thing too is it I don't want to say it took the airport. But I think with us now being in these conversations, you know, we found out that Florence used to take a group to DC every year, right? To go just say, hey, this is what we have going on. You know, we're here, right? But if we're not in those conversations, then we can't be upset that we're left out.

SPEAKER_02

True.

SPEAKER_00

Right? I mean, if they don't know we're here, then how can you expect that they're just gonna be like, oh, well, give Florence this? Yeah. Right. So I think that's that's what also this has started to where we're getting the city and and county and you know, some of these uh large businesses and industries in Florence. Can we all take a trip up to DC and say, hey, we're here. This is what we have going on, this is why we're asking for funding and start bringing some of those dollars into Florence that we've been missing out for I don't know how long.

SPEAKER_02

What really got my attention, and I think a lot of people's is I, you know, I heard there, if we didn't get this airport growing and in shape, we could lose it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, we it wasn't like a this it could just stay like this. It was uh hold on, we either grow this or potentially lose it. How close were we to that?

SPEAKER_00

You know, uh well, I think you know, American used to have five flights a day going

Convenience Airport Over Hub Dreams

SPEAKER_00

out. We're down to two.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, that first flight does pretty well. Um, you know, we're about at the 70% load factor, which isn't great. Um, uh, but that late flight, you know, last month that was 38%. That means, you know, out of uh 50 seats, uh, what is that? Again, not good with math, but you know, 50% would be 25 people. So we'll say, you know, 20 people were on that flight.

SPEAKER_02

We still need the community focused on flying out of Florence.

SPEAKER_00

We do, we do. And and we're and you know, the problem is to the people got burned on that late flight. Yeah, that's what you hear all the time. And I completely understand. When you get burned, you're like not doing it again. I'll take a rental car and I'll just drive home. Uh, I have a business coming in today to come talk to the airport and they flew into Charlotte, right? And how sad is that? They want, they're potentially wanting to do business at our airport and flying into Charlotte and driving down. Yeah, and so that's it just wasn't convenient for them to wait until the you know five o'clock flight to come in. And so we really need if we're gonna sit here and say that we're this convenient airport, which is what I'm preaching, because we are very convenient, we could be a lot more convenient with two or three more routes, you know what I mean?

Reeves

You may not like this, I don't know, but the uh the rail, the interstate system, the inland port, Dylan, all this seems to set up Florence as a phenomenal airport for commerce industry. Because we have Columbia an hour and 15 minutes away, because we have Myrtle Beach an hour and a half away, because we have Charleston two hours away, because we have Charlotte two and a half hours away. In that hub and spoke model, is there ever a reality where we will be a a commercial hub? Or or do we just need to focus more on the industry part of it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you know, I don't think we would ever be a hub. Yeah. Um, I think, you know, I think that there is a world where, you know, again, you get DC, you get Chicago, you get Atlanta. Everybody wants Atlanta, and I don't blame them. Yeah, uh, Atlanta's a hard sell right now, but I think as we grow that that will come organically.

SPEAKER_03

Good.

SPEAKER_00

But then why why not get Orlando? Yeah, right? It's the most visited place in America, I think, at this point. And from there you can get on the bullet train to all down the eastern coast of Florida. And and if you have Southwest, then maybe you get Nashville, right? Nashville's blowing up too, right? So so I think that's more along the lines of air service. Yeah, right. And and and that's perfect, that's correct, right? Because then we're not crowded, we're not fighting people to get on a plane, you know, we're this convenient airport. I think in reality, we focus on the commerce aspect, the economic aspect of this, because one, that can bring the business and industry we need here. We're, you know, we don't have tourism, so we're not gonna have tourism traffic, right? Um, leave that to Myrtle Beach in Charleston. Yeah, right. So let's focus on what we are again is we're a a hub for manufacturing and industry, right? Warehousing. Um, dare I say data centers. Um but but you know, I I think there's a real a real landscape for that in Florence, for all those things. And here's the other aspect of that. Myrtle Beach has one runway, right? They they essentially can't ever have two, from my knowledge. They don't have enough land, they just don't have enough land, uh, right? And so cargo for them is very just not in the cars, not in the cars, yeah, right. There's so much tourism coming in, especially during their busy season, that trying to get cargo planes in and out would just be be a pain. Yeah, right. Nor do I even think they want it, right? Right, and so imagine, and then on top of that, imagine bringing cargo into the very east coast and trying to push everything to the west. Yeah, why wouldn't you bring it into this centrally, centrally located area to be able to push east to Myrtle Beach?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we can get it to Myrtle Beach.

SPEAKER_00

We can get it to Myrtle Beach, yeah, right? So, so

Community Call To Fly FLO

SPEAKER_00

my question is you know, Amazon built this huge distribution center in Conway, right? Would that have been here if we would if we would have been more situated to accommodate that? Right, yeah, right? Because why try to push everything this way? Why try to fight Myrtle Beach traffic? Why not put it here and push out towards the east?

Reeves

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

And then you also have the north and the west and the south, right? We have this distinct, advantageous location. Dude, let's take advantage of it. Absolutely, absolutely.

Reeves

I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're doing it. Well done, Brad. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02

I appreciate it. I think you need a bonus. Well, alter for a bonus for Brad, because you're doing awesome, dude. Thanks, man. We talk to a lot of people in the community and everybody's rooting for you. Well, thanks. Big time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, again, um, shout out to Florence because if it wasn't for you know the team at the airport, if it wasn't for the city and the county, the local delegation, right? And and just the the businesses. There, there are businesses in Florence that um, I'll take their word for it, that they always say that, hey, we try to travel flow as as much as humanly possible. Right. Right. So it's those businesses that make a difference. Because to the average person flying out of Florence, right, the tickets can be costly. And until we get another airline, that's just the way it is. Without competition, right? There is no one that you have to fight against. That's true. And so I ask the businesses all the time if you can fly out of Florence, put that in your travel budget, right? Try to fly out because what we're trying to do is going to impact Florence for the next 30, 40, 50 years.

Reeves

Yeah, that's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_02

Man, we'll keep coming back because this is this is big, and I think everybody wants to stay updated. Yep. But thank you for coming. And anytime you got some new cool news, I'll be sure to read it. We're ready for you.

SPEAKER_00

I I got you. I'll share it with you guys. Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.