When he left his vice president slot at the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) earlier this year to become senior vice president of government and technical affairs at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), Andrew Cebula had to change his point of view along with the alphabet initials on his business card. NATA is the trade organization for the FBO industry and AOPA is a consumer group, and the two associations are apparently on opposite sides of some emotional debates.
One of the issues Cebula faces at AOPA was punctuated at a recent “town meeting” of pilots hosted by AOPA president Phil Boyer outside Teterboro (N.J.) Airport. During the Q&A session, a pilot pointedly asked, “Why is it that FBOs raise their prices on avgas when auto fuel gets more expensive, but they don’t ever lower them when the prices come down at the corner gas station?” Boyer assured the pilot that now that Cebula is on board at AOPA after 18 years with NATA, we’d get some answers to that question.
