Our Expertise

The creation of the state-of-the-art solar-powered, all-aluminum stationary hydrant carts was a collaborative effort, uniting Southwest’s management and its fuel team with fuel equipment manufacturers—with Glenn Hipp in the lead. Rather than submitting an RFP (Request for Proposal) to disparate manufacturers, Southwest purchased single carts from each, subjecting them to rigorous in-the-field testing. From this experience came innovations in design, many of which have been adopted as industry standards. Additionally, the acceptance of a design standard, permitted the manufacturer to buy components and material at favorable prices. The economies of scale led the way. Southwest added over 150 hydrant carts to its national system, and, in the process emissions were reduced; maintenance costs were lowered; and, most importantly, safety improved.

As airports grow in size, many existing fuel storage facilities have reached, or are about to reach, the point of obsolescence. The fact is, airports continue to grow in size, and fuel storage can’t keep up with demand.

Our strength is coordinating the efforts of the airlines, the airport, the engineers and the contractors while replacing outdated equipment, eliminating redundancy, increasing reliability, initiating automation and, finally, enhancing quality and improving safety. And most of the time, we accomplish this with reductions in fuel storage cost.

This is our specialty.  Without careful, thoughtful coordination between airlines, airports and operators, important details are often overlooked that can cost the industry millions in financial, operational or safety areas for years.  We have several well documented projects demonstrating our ability in this area.

Fuel Automation – Its embarrassing that the aviation industry continues to reconcile fuel through a very outdated hand written fuel ticket process.  Worse, the original controls meant to prevent errors are rarely still in place.  From the metering of the fuel to the reconciliation process, errors abound.  In 25 years, I’ve always been able to find errors in any stack of fuel tickets.  With current technology, it’s not difficult to install a fully automated data capture and reconciliation system, that can provide the fuel data to airlines and the operator, mere seconds after the fueling process is complete.  The data includes, gate, start and stop times, gallons delivered, employee name.  No more fighting over delays, with accurate, immediate reconciliation data all interested parties can view.  We’re ready to prove it to you at our expense.

We research the fuel supply chain from its origin, to receipt at the airport and, finally, on to the airplane. We can identify opportunities for improvement by uncovering the “pain points” in the logistics chain. Careful analysis can almost always identify savings opportunities, savings that may amount to millions of dollars.