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A local aviation school is beginning to look for a new home ahead of its anticipated eviction from the Indy South Greenwood Airport later this winter.
Jeff Air Pilot Services LLC said Thursday it was notified last week of the city’s plan to terminate its lease in March, after 14 years of operation at the airport, which was known as the Greenwood Municipal Airport until a name change in 2016. The facility, 897 Airport Parkway, is southwest of the Interstate 65-County Line Road interchange.
The company currently uses about 960 square feet in the primary fixed-base operator building at the facility, employing 26 people consisting of front-office staff, instructors and maintenance personnel.
David Jeffries, a longtime Indianapolis pilot who owns Jeff Air, said the company learned of the proposal to terminate its lease—which has been renewed on a year-to-year basis since at least 2020—only after it was publicly discussed by the Greenwood Board of Aviation Commissioners during a Jan. 9 meeting. He said the company was not consulted or notified that its lease would be contemplated for cancellation.
He called the decision a “callous move.”
“They just decided, without any type of discussion, that they were going to exercise the ‘out’ clause,” Jeffries said. “It kind of took us by surprise, in a sense, because we had no indication that there were problems or if that was the basis of it. There was no discussion on what might be some viable solutions to help us segue out without a disruption to our business. Since we began to press some for those discussions, we really haven’t gotten any response—any reasonable response—from the city, the mayor’s office or the airport manager.”
A representative for the city of Greenwood said the matter was “an airport board decision and will be discussed at their next meeting” in February, but did not provide further comment.
Jeff Air has operated from the Greenwood airport since 2011, leasing about 960 square feet. It is one of four flight schools that operates from the airport and has trained thousands of pilots by worked closely with veterans who rely on federal aid for training through the GI Bill, said Jeffries. Students from Indiana Wesleyan University also use the flight school.
Jeffries said those students now face mid-semester interruptions.
Airport manager Rick Ferrill confirmed to IBJ that there are plans to end the lease, but added a final determination will not be made until the next commissioners’ meeting in February.
“The main reason is the airport is out of space, so we’re kind of stagnant until something happens,” said Ferrill. “So, in order to try to improve our services … and move forward and grow our business, we felt—the board felt—that something needed to change. The option was to take back our offices for our own use so that we could expand our services and try to make the airport a better place for everybody to enjoy and be able to provide better services.”
In a news release, Jeff Air said the business accounted for about 61% of the airport’s low-lead fuel sales in 2024. Ferrill disputed that figure, stating airport records show it to be closer to 39.7%.
He also said while the company has likely generated about $300,000 in annual revenue for the airport, as it claims, the company misrepresents the amount of profit generated for the airport by the arrangement, which is closer to $75,000 from fuel and another $15,000 from the office lease.
The flight school said it also contributed $97,000 in sales tax revenue through roughly 9,700 flight training hours since opening.
Ferrill said the decision to terminate the lease wasn’t “meant to be anything personal,” but instead focused solely on creating more opportunities for the airport moving forward.
“We just felt there had to been a move made on our part, to be able to grow our business, just like any business person would want to do,” he said. “You can’t sit stagnant forever.”
In 2022, Jeff Air sought approval to build its own structure at the airport through a land-lease arrangement, but the airport board voted down the measure, citing limited space availability.
Jeffries said while he is optimistic the lease termination will not mean the departure of the school from Greenwood altogether, he said the current asking rents for nearby office space are out of the company’s price range. The company also would not be able to run its school out of the hangar it uses on airport property—which would still be at its disposal—because it already has maintenance operations there.
“There’s been really no follow-up discussions about what our options are, other than to go to the next board meeting and plead our case,” he said. “That’s really about where it’s been left, but there’s been no invitation to sit down at a table to just try to find a viable solution that will keep us in business in the Greenwood market.”
Jeff Air also has a location in Anderson, as well as a partner school in Marion.
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Greenwood should have moved their airport two decades ago to the other side of I-65 …
There is still lots of farmland over there in Clark Twp. between County Line and Main St. and some of it is even inside Greenwood city limits.
No way to know the back story, but if the company was not given a heads up that seems a bit dysfunctional. The business owner may have ignored some signals, but you think there would be some type of conversation.
Moving an airport isn’t the same as moving a warehouse, for example. The City/Airport has received Federal Grant money over the years and there would be ramifications should those improvements paid for by the government were abandoned. That doesn’t take into account the environmental studies that would be required for a new cite. The best solution is to use what they have more efficiently. We, at Jeff Air, have direct fuel numbers from the fuel supplier for the airport. Not sure where they get the idea that we only account for 39% of the fuel sales.
In January 2011, we were welcomed to the airport. There was one aircraft parked on the ramp…very little fuel sales. We operate 18 aircraft now. It is our opinion that the City should work with those who have helped build the airport for the past 14 years.