Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Boosts Onsite Fuel Storage

There’s a simple axiom that applies to airport operators everywhere: If your fuel tanks run dry, the planes don’t fly.

Driven by a powerful desire to never find itself or its customers in that predicament, Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (AZA) recently invested $4.5 million to increase onsite fuel reserves by up to 60%.

Last fall, the growing Arizona airport brought three new 50,000-gallon, above-ground fuel tanks online. The project increased its Jet A reserve capacity from 250,000 gallons—enough for three and a half days of normal operations—up to 400,000 gallons. With this added storage, the busy Allegiant Air hub can now support its standard mix of flights for seven to eight days.

“If there are disruptions, we’re not worried that we’re going to run out of fuel,” says J. Brian O’Neill, the airport’s executive director and chief executive officer. “It gives the airport and our tenants a higher degree of peace of mind.”

Concerns over fuel shortages aren’t unwarranted. In the past three years alone, U.S. airports have experienced significant disruptions to their supply lines, with causes ranging from mudslides and pipeline leaks to ransomware attacks and a lack of qualified drivers for fuel trucks. In addition, seasonal spikes in air traffic drove greater-than-expected demand for Jet A and avgas.

The Phoenix metro area receives nearly all of its fuel from two pipelines operated by the Houston-based Kinder Morgan Company. One connects to refineries in Colton, CA; the other originates near El Paso, TX. These pipelines carry aircraft fuel, as well as unleaded and diesel fuel for cars and trucks, into a bustling depot in West Phoenix near Interstate 10 and State Highway 202.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), the region’s primary commercial airport, receives its fuel through a smaller, separate pipeline the links the busy aviation hub to the depot in West Phoenix. But adding a similar underground connection is cost-prohibitive for AZA, which serves less than 2 million annual passengers (vs. nearly 50 million per year at PHX). Instead, the smaller airport receives its fuel from West Phoenix via truck, with tankers making the 70-mile roundtrip 10 to 16 times each day.

If the depot in West Phoenix goes offline, Plan B is trucking in fuel from Southern California via Interstate 10, which is known for its traffic congestion. Given the multiple points for potential failure, the benefits of boosting onsite storage at AZA were compelling.

“There have been pipeline disruptions from California to Phoenix. There were closures of the depot in West Phoenix, and there have been disruptions to the trucking of the fuel caused by driver shortages,” O’Neill says. “There were times where we were getting low on Jet A, and it put us in a precarious situation.”

Local Solution

In addition to its active general aviation traffic, AZA has scheduled flights from two leisure-oriented airlines, Allegiant and Sun Country. Last year, the airport served close to 1.9 million passengers with nonstop commercial service to more than 40 U.S. destinations.

Gateway Aviation Services, an airport-owned FBO, provides all fuel for commercial airliners, corporate jets, general aviation operators and military aircraft. Overall, it pumps 17 million to 20 million gallons of Jet A and 100 Low-Lead Avgas annually.

The fuel farm at AZA sits off the south ramp and previously included two 50,000-gallon tanks and a half-dozen smaller ones. Kimley Horn and Swanson Rink had designed the master plan for the fuel farm facility. Airport leaders later chose to expand the existing site by adding three new tanks, a less costly but more complicated option compared to building a new facility. KEAR Civil Corporation, a Phoenix-based business with decades of related experience and expertise, was the airport’s key project partner.

“We were selected on qualifications and price,” says KEAR Civil President Mike Fossett. “And we were able to work with the owner through design and construction. That doesn’t typically happen on design/bid/build projects, but this approach allowed us to bring a lot of efficiencies in scope.”

KEAR used the Construction Manager at Risk delivery method to expedite the project and purchased components from various vendors. It also handled the civil work, mechanical work and project management. One could say KEAR was born for the job because it was founded in 2001 and performed its first commercial fueling project at PHX, just 20 miles from AZA, soon after.

Over the ensuing decades, KEAR Civil built specialized fueling systems at U.S. military bases and commercial airfields coast to coast. Airport clients include Los Angeles International (LAX), Nashville International (BNA), Salt Lake City International (SLC) and San Diego International (SAN). It has also completed dozens of municipal water infrastructure jobs across the country.

Mass Image Compressor Compressed this image. https://sourceforge.net/projects/icompress/ with Quality:50

Gary Leach, a senior project manager with KEAR Civil, was involved with the AZA project from its design stage in spring 2022 through the start of construction in May 2023. He and two other full-time KEAR personnel oversaw multiple subcontractors, with up to 30 skilled trade workers at peak. Leach says minimizing operational disruptions and security concerns made the project at AZA challenging but fun.

“You’re trying to integrate to give them the most bang for their buck,” he explains. “I enjoyed the extra challenge of, ‘How in the world are we going to get this tied in without shutting them down for too long?’”

Ultimately, the answer was isolating up to two tanks from operational rotation while tying new components into the pipes and infrastructure. Changing the existing tank management system—hardware and software—presented a larger challenge because it required an even higher level of coordination.

“There were some key folks on the owner’s team who were very familiar with the old system, which was a huge benefit to the integration of new controls and getting that system integrated while keeping everything up and running as much as possible,” Leach says. It took some long days to minimize the impact of onsite work, he adds.

Project designers upgraded AZA’s tank management system to the TMS4000, from Pneumercator. The new system is reportedly much easier for the airport-owned FBO to maintain because it allows individual tanks to come offline for cleaning, fuel transfers or general repairs while other tanks remain in operation.

“That’s a bonus to us,” says Matthew Nebgen, director of Gateway Aviation Services.

 Growth Story

In 2022, AZA completed a multiyear project to replace an outdated air traffic control tower that had been in place since its days as Williams Air Force Base, a training site for World War II pilots. Earlier this year, a five-gate, 30,000-square-foot terminal improvement project was completed, replacing four smaller gates the airport had long since outgrown. At the same time, AZA also unveiled a 4,000-square-foot terminal connector between ticketing and its TSA checkpoint. What was once outdoor space
is now enclosed for a better customer experience and indoor queuing.

With the west side of its airfield effectively complete, AZA’s leadership will next focus on developing SkyBridge Arizona, a 360-acre master-planned development, and the 273-acre Gateway East commercial real estate project. Once those sites are built out with a mix of aviation and non-aeronautical businesses, the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport Authority plans to bond against those long-term lease revenues to finance a wholly new commercial terminal complex on 250 acres it has reserved on the east side of AZA’s airfield. That expansion is still at least a decade away, however.

Mass Image Compressor Compressed this image. https://sourceforge.net/projects/icompress/ with Quality:90

“We’re really being very strategic,” O’Neill says of planning for the airport’s nearly 3,000-acre campus. Beyond commercial service, AZA is home to robust general aviation community including separate flight schools run by ATP and a partnership between Arizona’s Chandler-Gilbert Community College and the University of North Dakota. As the Phoenix area expands, AZA is also attracting much more corporate aviation business.

The recently expanded fuel farm was designed to accommodate another 50,000-gallon tank if needed. “The way the piping was installed and the foundations were laid, it’s ready for a fourth that would be very, very easy to integrate into the system,” says Leach.

But Nebgen is eyeing another potential option: acquiring larger storage tanks that would be located at the West Phoenix depot. It’s never too soon to plan for the future,
he adds.

“We need to continually monitor the needs of the airport,” Nebgen summarizes. “Having seven or more days in reserve offers much more breathing room, but I’m already thinking about the next expansion and what we need to do to meet upcoming demand.”