The Minot City Council accepted one proposal Monday, but indications are that Minot will have two companies providing aviation services and selling fuel at the airport starting in January.
The council voted 11-1 to privatize fuel sales at the airport and then voted 10-2 to award the sales to GFK Flight Support of Grand Forks. Currently, the airport has a monopoly in selling fuel to aviation customers.
The contract with GFK isn't exclusive, so other companies that meet the terms can also operate at the airport with the right to sell aviation fuel.
"I plan to be in there and compete and would like to be able to do it as soon as possible," Warren Pietsch of Pietsch Aircraft Restoration and Repair, Minot, said in urging the council to begin the privatization in January.
The council had considered delaying the contract start until March to give GFK more preparation time. But Brent Seifert, vice president of GFK, said his company will be ready to go by January.
The split vote in awarding the contract reflected some support for Pietsch, whose family has provided aviation services at the airport for many years. Seifert said he didn't want the situation portrayed as the local company versus the outsider.
"I hope that doesn't dictate where we are headed in the future. We are coming here as a partner with the City of Minot," he said.
Having two fixed-base operators providing fuel will split the business but won't affect income coming to the city. The council's Airport Committee had recommended GFK because it found the company's proposal to be the most lucrative to the city in terms of fees and other revenue that the airport could collect from its operations.
The city's contract with GFK gives the company the use of the airport's general aviation terminal and fuel farm for its operations. Pietsch would have to provide its own space and fueling facilities.
The decision to privatize fuel sales also will mean cutting airport staff by two positions. The city will seek to move those two employees into other city positions for which they are qualified.