Truckee Tahoe Airport Pioneers Airbnb Approach for Short-Term Hangar Rental

While shortages of general aviation hangars continue nationwide, Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK) has found a way to accommodate transient aircraft in need of storage space, and earn additional revenue in the process. A new online platform helps the California airport rent tenant hangars to transient customers on a short-term basis when based aircraft are temporarily away. The airport and leaseholders who choose to participate share the rental revenue 70%/30%, respectively, though that split may change as the program evolves.

The first rental booked through the web-based system occurred on Dec. 19, 2024, and TRK had logged 26 transactions by the end of this June. Many have been multiday bookings; the longest was two weeks. Most customers are corporate flight departments or owner/operators who are on the waitlist for full-time hangar space at TRK.

Director of Aviation Jeff Menasco is encouraged by the results thus far. “We have had repeat customers already and approximately $30K in revenues to date,” he reported in June.

Securing hangar space is especially critical during winter because TRK is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at an elevation of 5,900 feet. With annual snowfalls of about 206 inches, hangars are a de facto deicing system. Demand remains high during warmer weather, with outdoor enthusiasts coming to the region for biking, golfing, boating, etc. In fact, the airport’s busiest times are July 4th and Labor Day weekend, when it logs up to 800 operations a day—about eight times more than usual.

Currently, all 227 of TRK’s hangars are leased and there is a multi-year waitlist for the next available opening. Yet, airport staff estimate that 30% of the hangars are vacant on any given night. That’s because many tenants live in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area but have vacation homes in the Lake Tahoe area. After they fly home, their hangars sit empty.

This struck Menasco as inefficient. And as a colonel, wing commander and C-130 pilot in the U.S. Air Force, he was trained to constantly improve efficiency. When he became Director of Aviation at TRK in 2023, he prioritized innovation.

“We’ve been searching for a way to maximize our hangar usage,” Menasco explains. “I had been calling around for about a year looking for a digital data solution platform.”

Airport Development Meets Software Development

Persistence paid dividends at the Association of California Airports conference, where Menasco met with Cory Cozzens, chief executive officer of Altaport. Menasco sought out Cozzens because his company develops software to help general aviation airports, heliports and vertiports manage transient operations. Cozzens was already familiar with TRK because a decade prior, he helped bring in Surf Air to provide service between San Carlos Airport (SQL) and TRK.

At the October 2024 conference, Menasco asked whether Altaport could provide an Airbnb-type solution for hangar rentals by Dec. 1, and Cozzens wasn’t spooked by the quick development timetable. “We were excited to support TRK, as this was a natural extension to solutions we were already offering, and an obvious way to provide value to both airports and operators alike,” Cozzens explains.

Just 90 days later, TRK had its first booking through new Altaport software.

The online process was immediately a significant improvement. Previously, airport staff used a whiteboard to manage short-term hangar rentals, and customers could only book the day they arrived. “We had no prior reservation system—very old-school,” Menasco relates.

Modernizing the Process

Pilots have long used online forums, ad boards and, more recently, social media to find available hangars for upcoming trips. But finding space for unplanned stays during severe weather or maintenance crises is still often difficult and time-consuming. Moreover, traditional options don’t execute reservations.

Altaport’s system is designed to connect transient aircraft with empty hangars in transactions facilitated and managed by the airport. Much like home rental sites such as Airbnb, it works in real time. In addition, the platform automates some of the administrative work that would otherwise fall to airport staff, such as tracking the schedules of incoming and outgoing aircraft, optimizing space allocation with designated hangars and collecting rental fees.

Given its vested interest in the concept, TRK provided a nominal fee to support initial software development and became the launch customer for a new component in Altaport’s software suite. “Truckee was a great design partner,” Cozzens remarks.

Tenants at TRK interested in making their hangars available for short-term occupancy must sign a lease addendum because all hangars on the field are owned by the airport district, and rental contracts do not allow subletting. Menasco describes the process as very easy and compares it to a timeshare agreement. Tenants enjoy helping the general aviation community and reducing their own rental fees, he adds.

Cozzens describes the revenue sharing arrangement between TRK and tenants as mutually beneficial and reports strong interest from other airports and state Departments of Transportation about this program.

Start-up tasks that fell to TRK were taking accurate measurements of all participating hangars and thinking through the various operational processes and policies to be implemented. “We double- and triple-checked the measurements on each hangar,” Menasco emphasizes. “Even the hangar doors can be different,” he adds, noting that doors, electrical boxes and other fixed items needed to be documented to ensure aircraft compatibility. “We’ve only done specs for the seven or eight hangars we have in circulation,” he reports.

“We want to make sure we are automating where possible,” Cozzens adds. Currently, that includes several tasks: managing reservation requests, validating aircraft-hangar compatibility, optimizing hangar assignments, collecting and distributing revenue, and managing the hangar calendar.

Menasco acknowledges there are inherent security risks when accommodating transient aircraft, and he has talked with other airports and fixed base operators about the topic. Originally, TRK considered having transient operators set up an account and keep proof-of-insurance on file in the system, but management ultimately decided to forego that prerequisite. The airport does, however, require all short-term hangar occupants to agree to a list of disclaimers. To minimize risks, TRK staff handle all aircraft movement via tug and escort transient customers in and out of hangars.

To enhance safety, airport staff move aircraft in and out of hangars for transient customers.

Aircraft operators wanting to book hangars log onto Altaport’s website, click the “request reservation” button, provide their aircraft tail number and select the dates needed. Altaport determines availability and compatibility in real time, and then uses app notifications and email to inform the airport and recommend an appropriate hangar. Currently, airport personnel manually approve each reservation, but that function will likely be automated in the future. Customer requests are usually approved within an hour or two during regular business hours.

“We are hyper-focused in helping GA airports stretched by labor and budget constraints,” says Cozzens. “Airport managers have so few opportunities to interact with transient travelers.”

Pricing and Payment

Because the service is relatively new, the airport is evaluating its initial pricing structure. To keep things simple, short-term rental rates are based on aircraft weight.

Currently, Cessnas and similar planes pay $150 per night on weekdays and $188 per night on weekends. For turbine aircraft over 5,000 pounds, the rate is $300 per night. Pilatus or equivalent aircraft pay $450 per night, small jets pay $675 per night and medium to large jets pay about $1,000 per night. Rental rates are adjusted when inventory is limited. For instance, if a Cessna operator wants to book space, but only larger hangars are available, that customer pays the price for a smaller Cessna-size hangar.

Towing fees are $250 to $350 depending on aircraft size.

When a reservation is requested, a hold is placed on the customer’s credit card and payment is processed through Stripe. Cozzens notes that invoicing for trustworthy repeat customers will be added in the future.

Trial to Minimize Errors

TRK Director of Operations Vince Wawrzynski, also a retired military pilot, had his team execute a trial of the system with Cozzens before opening it up to customers. “We did a dry run using real aircraft and calling UNICOM on the radio and stepping through all our procedures to include what would be going on with the Altaport platform and working through various what-if questions,” he explains.

The trial run inspired software tweaks and refined the airport’s standard operating procedures for the new program. By the time the test was complete, Altaport’s software developer had already added new data points.

“We launched the hangar solution as a ‘proof of concept’ with Truckee. Now, the product is much more finessed, with improvements reflective of learnings from both the dry runs and real world use,” Cozzens remarks. “There were learnings on the airport side as well.”

To continue the learning from both sides, TRK and Altaport team members hold a regularly recurring call to review new features and discuss potential product and process improvements. When needed, Cozzens also assists the TRK team through Zoom calls and onsite visits. Menasco says getting the Ops team comfortable and up to speed with the platform was initially a minor challenge but things are falling into place with internal training.

There have been some glitches with the new system—one with a reservation for hangar use starting and ending on the same day, a use case that hadn’t initially been foreseen by the airport. But Menasco credits Altaport for responding quickly. Airport employees communicate with the company via a Slack channel and/or real-time phone calls. As with all new technology tools, there is a learning curve for the users and developers alike.

Pilots needing last-minute hangar space can click “Book Now” on the airport’s website to make a reservation using the Altaport system.

Menasco reports that “discovery learning” is occurring organically as more transient aircraft use the system, which he compares to a one-stop shop. “We like the ability to manipulate reservations and cancellations due to weather, and it has a nice Gantt chart as well,” he says. Staff members are reportedly happy with the system and are already brainstorming ideas for future versions.

“Automation is the most important feature,” Cozzens emphasizes. “We are trying to take work off the plates of the airport managers.”

Good Neighbor Policy

For Menasco, the new reservation system is a tool to help optimize the airport’s existing infrastructure and avoid the time, hassle and expense of building new hangars. As Director of Aviation, he is determined to spare the community from noise, traffic congestion and other negative effects associated with additional construction.

Another aspect of the airport’s good neighbor philosophy is its industry-leading move to sell sustainable aircraft fuel. (Check out the May 2024 issue of Airport Improvement for more information:  https://airportimprovement.com/article/truckee-tahoe-airport-goes-all-sustainable-aviation-fuel/)

The new hangar rental option further supports TRK’s environmental position through noise and emissions abatement. Menasco explains that offering short-term hangar rentals helps reduce airfield noise and aircraft emissions by decreasing the position and deposition legs into and out of TRK, often to Reno and back in the same day, particularly during inclement weather. With last-minute overnight rentals available, some of these operations could be eliminated, making the airport a quieter, cleaner neighbor.

It would be more than naïve to think that short-term rentals will cure the ongoing hangar shortage, and that is not Altaport’s goal. However, the new option could eventually help relieve some strain—especially in high-demand markets like Lake Tahoe. Add in the opportunity to collect more rental revenue and the potential to delay or stave off costly construction, and it’s easy to see why TRK helped develop the concept.

Menasco reports that a major push to promote the program is on the horizon as system refinements are completed. “With the great progress we’ve made, we’ll start advertising the opportunity more, and we will make some targeted phone calls to tenants we believe would be good candidates for the program,” he says.