Florida, Muskegon air services to bring private hangar, in-flight catering services to Ford Airport

Muskegon-based Rothbury Executive Air could soon bring a $7 million transient air terminal to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport -- facilities complete with West Michigan's first in-flight catering kitchen.

The 37,000-square-foot terminal will include banquet facilities, flight crew sleep rooms and showers, and an antique car showroom for visitors to enjoy. But developers say the most important amenity could be the 2,400-square-foot catering kitchen operated by Florida-based Silver Lining Inflight Catering to provide private and corporate clients with meal services ranging from light snacks to complete formal dinners for consumption onsite or in-air.

The project is the result of a new partnership between Rothbury Executive Air and Silver Lining Inflight Catering, which prompted Silver Lining to launch its first venture outside Florida, says Alison Albright of Rothbury Executive Air.

"Catering is a huge business in private aviation -- the standards and quality have to be a much higher scale, and we found that Silver Lining has what we wanted to bring to Grand Rapids," Albright says. "There is no other facility of this type at the airport."

"It's a 24/7/365 operation," says Terry Boer of Executive Air Transport, the entity that will manage the facility. "Our facility will be the gateway into West Michigan. Customers will arrive in private airplanes to meet with local businesses, and our ramp agents will take care of the aircraft and fuel them, do flight planning, wait for customers and passengers to return, and will order catering through us for their arrival or return flight."

Plans call for a groundbreaking in May, with completion of the facility in late fall. A private investment company is developing the project, Boer says, but he declined to name the investors.

"This facility brings a lot of new services to the airport that aren't being offered," he says. "We're going to meet the needs of the airline community through the catering and our ability to house larger aircraft in the hangar."

Source: Alison Albright, Rothbury Executive Air; Terry Boer, Executive Air Transport
Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor