A 'boutique-y' airport in Abita Springs? New operator wants to entice more pilots.

Dan Oppenheim tilted the yoke of the Cessna 210 and banked its nose to the north, aiming for a rectangular box cut into the woods east of Abita Springs some 1,000 feet below.

Eyes shifting between the horizon and the instrument panel, Oppenheim’s craft began its descent. Ever mindful of the pines on the south end of the airstrip, Oppenheim gently put the airplane onto the asphalt.

“As my mother used to joke, ‘We cheated death again,’” he said with a big smile.

Few flyers can claim to have touched down on the St. Tammany Parish Regional Airport’s runway as many times as Oppenheim. He’s the longest-renting tenant at the facility, having kept an airplane there since 1993.

In the decades since, he’s seen ... well, he hasn’t actually seen much happen there, to hear him talk. The years have brought little change to the rural airport.

But Oppenheim says he and some others in the western St. Tammany flying community are optimistic that the parish has a new fixed-base operator — airport talk for a manager — that wants to draw some more traffic to the 42-acre airport off La. 36.

Not that Oppenheim wants major change.

“I don’t think we’re looking for it to become big,” he said, unbuckling and exiting his plane. “But we want to be healthy. I just don’t want this place to become another shopping center.”

'If you build it ... '

Abita Skies Aviation, the new fixed-base operator — FBO for short — took over in May. Under the company’s agreement with the parish, Abita Skies pays $4,000 monthly to rent space and operate the airport, while the parish continues to handle much of the maintenance.

The company makes money from the sale of fuel and renting hangar space. Not that company officials plan to make much money, at least not in the short term.

Opened in 1971 as Richard Privette Sr. Airport, the facility, whose name changed to St. Tammany Parish Regional Airport somewhere along the way, offers little in the way of luxury. Just a 2,999-foot runway, an office building and a handful of hangars rented by 10 tenants.

It’s a rural airport, after all.

But Bob Christ and his sister, Cheryl Walsh, who run Abita Skies, see untapped potential.

“We want to make it a little less country and more ‘boutique-y’,” Walsh, of Covington, said. “This could be a boutique destination — it’s smaller, more private.”

Christ and Walsh grew up in Houma, where their father ran an airport. So flying and operating small airports is in their blood.

“We have a high degree of wealth in this parish that could support this airport,” said Christ, who now lives in Mandeville and also has an oilfield-related business.

Quoting the oft-used movie line, he added, “'If you build it, they’ll come.' We can create an aviation community.”

“The flying community is always looking for reasons to fly,” added Walsh, who will handle the marketing. "We have to give them a reason.”

Lengthened runway, newer technology

Tops on the improvement wish list for the airport is a runway extension to 5,000 feet and new, upgraded navigational technology. A longer runway would allow bigger airplanes and jets and open the facility to corporate business.

“Those two things will define our growth,” Christ said.

St. Tammany Regional is one of two airports in the parish. Slidell operates an airport with a 5,000-foot runway on the eastern side of the parish.

“It’s kind of been dormant,” St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper said of the little airport in the woods near Abita Springs.

“There’s lots of potential out there,” Cooper said. “Corporate planes are in the future plans.”

But the parish’s five-year improvement plan for the airport will require money the parish doesn’t have. Christ said the list of desired work at the parish-owned airport tops $10 million.

The Federal Aviation Administration offers grants that cover 90% of the costs for rural airport improvements. But those grants are competitive, and a need must be demonstrated to the FAA.

The airport averages around 70 takeoffs and landings per day now, according to FAA data.

“Not enough,” Christ said of that flight census.

“That’s why they call me ‘Maytag,’’’ Walsh chuckled, referencing the old TV commercials featuring the not-so-busy appliance repair person.

Oppenheim, the longtime tenant, is hopeful some of the potential that Christ and Walsh and Cooper see can be tapped. Circling 1,400 feet above the airport, looking down at vast stretches of pines interspersed with big subdivisions, Oppenheim can almost envision it.

“You could have something really nice out here,” he said. “Pilots would come here.”