Among the 18 service providers exhibiting under the Shell Aviation banner (Booth 2040) at NBAA 2014 is the newest FBO in the country, having opened literally just days before the start of the convention. Named after pioneering Chicago-area resident and aviatrix Bessie Coleman, B. Coleman Aviation now occupies a newly-built $9 million facility at Indiana’s Gary/Chicago International Airport, making it the second service provider at the airport, which is located less than half an hour from the Windy City’s downtown.
The 18,000-sq-ft terminal, which is open 24/7, offers concierge service, onsite car rental, complimentary Starbucks coffee and high speed Wi-Fi connectivity, a pair of conference rooms, pilots lounge complete with a 105-inch television, snooze room, flight planning and weather briefing room, fitness room with shower facilities, crew cars and Type I and Type IV deicing. The 20,000-sq-ft heated hangar can accommodate aircraft up to a Bombardier Global. The full-service location also provides aircraft management and charter service.
The FBO’s fuel farm consists of a 12,000-gallon Jet A tank served by 5,000- and 3,000-gallon refuelers and an 8,000-gallon avgas tank, tended by a 1,200-gallon truck. As a Shell-branded dealer, the FBO’s line service personnel have been certified through the fuel provider’s ACE program.
While the location offers ramp-side vehicle access, a 12,500-sq-ft arrivals canopy with ground heat system adjoins the spacious lobby and provides shelter for deplaning passengers. The heated hangar can accommodate aircraft the size of a Bombardier Global. B. Coleman Aviation also operates a maintenance facility at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida and it has plans to expand that service to the Chicagoland FBO with the construction of another maintenance hangar. The company chose to honor Coleman based on her trailblazing status as the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license in the early 1920s.
