Desert Jet Center Needs Your Support

Desert Jet Center, part of the Desert Jet family of companies, needs your support as we battle the County of Riverside to complete construction of an upscale Fixed Based Operations (FBO) facility at the Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport (KTRM), Thermal, CA.  The County, on numerous occasions has failed to provide Desert Jet Center a fair and equitable opportunity to build upon our 4.4-acre lot at the airport.

In 2011 Desert Jet requested approval to procure a 35-year leasehold from the County for building a new facility.  Due to massive employee turnover within the County, bureaucratic delays and cycling of several airport managers, it took four years before the County finally granted approval to Desert Jet Center in 2015.  Within two weeks of signing the land lease, Desert Jet Center was immediately faced with persistent roadblocks and unreasonable demands made by the County; from requiring Desert Jet Center to improve the leasehold property of a competitor, to the refusal to give Desert Jet Center equitable construction period extensions due to delays caused directly by the County, itself.  The County has also discriminated against Desert Jet Center by allowing only a 12-month construction period to complete a 5-million-dollar project, whereas, other tenants at the airport were provided substantially longer construction periods, ranging from 4 years and beyond.  

“From the beginning of this process we have been trying in good faith to establish and maintain a cohesive relationship for the betterment of the valley’s economic and social development,” said Denise Wilson, CEO of Desert Jet. “Unfortunately, we have been met with near constant, costly and lengthy delays, all due to the County’s actions, or complete lack of mission-critical actions.”

We have now launched a new website (www.thermalairport.com) that tells our complete story.  We implore you, our aviation industry colleagues to go to the site and support us by writing an email to our local representative who can strike through the bureaucracy and allow us to complete our project.  With your help, an independent FBO can win the battle against the injustice of a County’s unfair and discriminatory actions.