"San Bernardino airport lands charter service"

Sunday, March 16, 2003

San Bernardino airport lands charter service
Ascend Aviation Group to fly Dodgers to away baseball games
By JIM STEINBERG
The Inland Valley (CA) Daily Bulletin


Sports teams, actors and movie executives may soon be traveling through
the now empty terminal at San Bernardino International Airport.

On Tuesday, the San Bernardino International Airport authority board
signed a five-year agreement with Ascend Aviation Group LLC, which will
use SBIA as a base for its executive jet charter service, aircraft
maintenance, repair and overhaul business and storage and parts
facility.

The company already has 70 employees and may expand to 250 as business
increases.

The charter will bring SBIA an annual lease income of $2.7 million.

Ascend has charter contracts with the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco
Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks and the Kansas City Royals.

The first Ascend Boeing 727 charters leaving San Bernardino was
scheduled to pick up the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Kansas City Royals
over the weekend and fly them to an exhibition game in Hermosillo,
Mexico.

The first Dodgers charter flight will be March 26. Ascend will fly the
team from spring training camp in Florida to an exhibition game in Las
Vegas.

An article posted on the Dodgers' Web site says the contract with Ascend
will cost the team $200,000 less than last year's travel bill, when the
team flew on commercial carriers. It will run between $400,000 and
$500,000 less than what was anticipated for this year.

In addition to professional sports charters, Ascend Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer George Warde envisions carving another niche in the
entertainment industry by running chartered flights to movie production
sites outside the Los Angeles metro area.

Ascend charters could ferry movie production crews, actors and
executives from Southern California to far-flung film sites.

And some might fly out of San Bernardino.

But Ascend planes will meet clients at whatever airport they want, said
Warde, a former president for American Airlines, Continental Airlines
and Airbus Industries.

For example, during most of the season, the Dodgers will leave from Los
Angeles International Airport or the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport,
he said.

But at least once, the team will come through the San Bernardino
airport.

In August, after playing the Montreal Expos, the Dodgers will use the
airport because it's easier to go through customs.

Scott Spencer, president of an aircraft leasing company owned by Ascend
Aviation, said Warde is working to get the Dodgers to fly out of San
Bernardino International Airport at least once during the regular
season.

Spencer said that a Los Angeles law firm that sends about 14 lawyers to
New York each week is considering using a helicopter to bring the legal
team to San Bernardino where they would board their charter flight.

Even with the helicopter flight, it would cost them less to fly Ascend
out of San Bernardino than to board a charter plane at Los Angeles
International Airport, Warde said.

That's because LAX charges significantly more for landing fees and
flight services.

Ascend chose San Bernardino after looking at other airports, including
Long Beach, Victorville and Palmdale, Spencer said.

The only other real possibility was Long Beach, but the costs were too
high, he said.

"I believe that this facility is one of the best kept secrets in
aviation," Warde told airport authority board members Tuesday.

Another business Ascend wants to develop here is aircraft storage.
Because aviation is such a cyclical industry, Warde said he believes he
has hit it at the right time.

When the market turns, Ascend wants to help airlines and other charter
air operators bring aircraft out of storage and back into operation.

"We believe we are poised and ready to catch it if it goes over the
top," Warde said.

Ascend is leasing the former Lockheed aircraft painting hangar at the
San Bernardino airport, which is the only licensed facility of its kind
in California, Spencer said.

Ascend has subleased the painting facility to Aeropro LLC, which will
paint Ascend's fleet of 13 Boeing 727 aircraft.

Some of those planes will be red, blue or even a rainbow of colors, said
Patrycja Wisniewska, the company's designer.

Ascend aircraft are operated under contract by Wichita, Kan.-based Ryan
International Airlines.

Maintenance repair and overhaul services will be provided by
Ontario-based Certified Aviation Services.


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