Daytona Beach Tower - DAB

cforst513 Rookie

Things are rough right now, for sure. We are somehow tightening the belt even more than it was. We have been in talks with investors for a few weeks. I think it's just a matter of time before the cash starts flowing again. It is kind of do or die at this point. We're in a lull. But I am the eternal optimist. I personally cannot afford this job to tank or I am not going to be able to follow through with my CTI.

FWIW, Epic has been "falling apart" and "going out of business" for YEARS now. Lol. Rumors, mostly unsubstantiated. Mostly.

mpartovi Rookie New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Epic IS going out of business unfortunately. No longer rumors. The city of New Smyrna has taken over the fuel farm since it was a real coin toss whether or not you'd have fuel available on a regular day. Epic will be moving out of their BIG hangar and sharing probably with Air America until all the late rent is paid.

It's a tough business to do successfully. I wish Eric and his team the best of luck.

cforst513 Rookie

They took over it so we could reduce overhead and yes, they were ticked that we went a week w/out JetA. Same thing with the hangar. We're all about reducing costs right now.

Things are improving since I made that last post. The person you mentioned actually sacrificed his job so another person with 4 children wouldn't lose his. An absolutely honorable thing to do. Not sure if I could make that sacrifice.

mpartovi Rookie New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Very honorable indeed. I wish the best for everyone there. I would hate to see ANYTHING GA related go.

Except maybe the handful of residents who call me everyday about silly noise complaints.

...they can go.

towerflower Junior Member Palm Coast, FL

I was always amazed at people who buy homes next to an airport and then complain that airplanes fly out of it.

atcbrett Newcomer

It's been a while since anyone has spoke about Daytona and there are tons of people that have selected FL so I figured I would do a little update from the tour I took this week.

I showed up at the tower at 10:00am and met the operations manager, as well as a few supervisors. We first checked out the TRACON. I believe there were 10 scopes in the radar room, however they only use one side of the room now (5 scopes) since they parted with a portion of their airspace to MCO. They have 5 main sectors, 2 high and 2 low. When they're not as busy they consolidate it down of course and they had 3 positions open at the time. After that we went up to the tower. There were 3 people working in the tower at the time. One clearance delivery, one ground, and one local. Even though they only have 10 commercial flights a day, they are home to Embry-Riddle, Pheonix, and other flight schools and DAB is base to a few hundred training aircraft. Their longest runway is closed for re-paving, so that leaves the two crossing runways. The closure kept ground busy! Local seemed pretty straight forward everything was sequenced straight in for approach. I asked most of the important questions of course: how long it takes to check out, staffing levels etc. He said their pass rate is about 50%. He also said they are currently at staffing levels and have 6 on their way on top of that.

Hope this helps some if you've had DAB in mind let me know if you have any more questions