Airport RFPs
Airport FBO RFPs: responses written the way a selection committee reads them.
Airport sponsors select operators through a competitive process. We prepare responses that address the stated selection criteria and the commitments standing behind them.
Positioning, financial capacity, development plan and operating history, presented the way a selection committee evaluates them.
Sponsors score four things. Responses are most often lost on the first two.
Selection committees are not persuaded by presentation. They are looking for the commitments they can enforce and the financial capacity standing behind them — and they are reading dozens of pages looking for the places where those two things are missing.
Financial capacity
Not a balance sheet attached at the back. A capital plan with a lender behind it, sources and uses that reconcile, and evidence the respondent can carry the project through lease-up.
Development commitment
A schedule with costs that survive review, tied to milestones the sponsor can hold you to. Vague phasing reads as an intention to renegotiate later.
Operating experience
Demonstrated performance on comparable fields, presented against the specific service standards this sponsor has written into the solicitation.
Community fit
Based-tenant relations, noise and access posture, local employment and how the operator behaves when the airport takes public criticism.
What we build
A submission written the way a selection committee reads one.
Committees score against stated criteria, in order, often with a scoring sheet. The response is built to that structure rather than to a narrative the respondent prefers.
Bid strategy
What this sponsor is actually solving for, what the incumbent is vulnerable on, and where the proposal should be aggressive rather than uniformly strong.
The pro forma
Fuel volume, hangar income and expense build that reconciles to comparable fields — and holds up when the sponsor’s consultant tests it.
Capital plan
Sources, uses, equity commitment and a financing path with an institution that lends on airport leaseholds already identified.
Lease terms
Rent structure, term and extension rights, reversion, and minimum standards commitments the sponsor can enforce and the operator can live with.
Development schedule
Phasing, costs and milestone dates presented as commitments rather than aspirations.
Presentation
The oral round, where a shortlisted response is either confirmed or unwound. Prepared for specifically, against the questions this committee will ask.
We also work the other direction.
For airport sponsors, the objective is to attract credible operators and then choose between them defensibly.
We draft minimum standards and lease structures that bring qualified respondents to the table — terms strict enough to protect the field, realistic enough that a competent operator can finance the obligation.
Then we evaluate what comes back: testing pro formas against the market, verifying financial capacity, and scoring responses against the criteria as written.
The work that decides an RFP happens before it is issued.
By the time a solicitation is published, the sponsor’s priorities, the parcel, the minimum standards and often the timeline are already set. A respondent who first engages at publication is reacting to decisions someone else has made.
Where an operator is watching a field for a future opportunity, the useful work starts a year or more ahead: understanding the sponsor, the incumbent’s lease expiration and the field’s unmet demand.
Where the solicitation is already out, the sequence compresses but does not change — strategy first, financials second, prose last.
The firm
Senior principals, involved throughout.
Griffin Towers is an independent advisory firm focused on aviation transactions and select strategic assignments.
The practice is intentionally focused. Engagements are led directly by senior principals from initial analysis and valuation through negotiation, diligence and execution.
We favor preparation, discretion and disciplined judgment over transaction volume.
A private overview of the firm, representative experience and selected capabilities is available upon request.
Request firm overviewContact
Begin a confidential conversation.
If you are considering a sale, acquisition, valuation or strategic aviation assignment, tell us what you are working through.
Initial conversations are confidential and handled directly by the firm.
Boulder, Colorado 80304