Gillette Airport Contracts Wingman Aviation Services for Maintenance as Commercial Passenger Numbers Surge
Why It MattersAirport-run FBOs facing maintenance gaps often depend on a single qualified bidder, showing how thin the supplier base can be for smaller regional fields even as passenger demand climbs.
What happened
Campbell County Commissioners have approved a contract with Wingman Aviation Services to provide aircraft maintenance at Northeast Wyoming Regional Airport, restoring a full-time maintenance program that had been absent since GateOne took over as fixed-base operator in 2023. Wingman will pay the airport $2,000 per month to lease hangar space, and beginning in January will also pay 3% of its monthly gross receipts, capped at $3,000 per month. Wingman was the only company to respond to the airport's request for proposals, according to Airport Director Todd Chatfield.
Wingman will primarily service private aircraft but, per the airport's minimum standards, must also be available for commercial flight maintenance. The company already performs contract maintenance on SkyWest aircraft at several Wyoming airports. Chatfield said Wingman is capable of performing annual inspections and general maintenance work, including fixing flat tires.
In May 2025, the airport itself assumed FBO responsibilities under the name Thunder Basin Aviation following a dispute with GateOne, which had held the FBO contract since 2023. The airport board alleged GateOne failed to fulfill its contracted duties, including providing maintenance, and the two parties are currently in litigation. The airport is still seeking a permanent FBO and is working with the county to prepare a new request for proposals.
On the commercial side, passenger numbers have risen following a brief shutdown for runway construction. June, July, and August each recorded more than 6,000 passengers, with traffic peaking in August at 6,319 passengers. In 2025, the busiest month prior to that stretch was May, with 5,460 passengers. Chatfield attributed the increase to the introduction of three flights on some days and the switch from the CRJ200 to the CRJ550, a 70-passenger aircraft from which 20 seats have been removed to provide more luggage space and which also offers first-class and business-class seating.
Industry impact & what to watch
Small regional airports that lose maintenance coverage when an FBO contract breaks down often find themselves as the buyer of last resort, running the facility directly until a new operator can be secured. That Wingman was the sole respondent to the request for proposals illustrates how limited the pool of maintenance providers can be in a market the size of Campbell County, where one contractor servicing SkyWest aircraft across several Wyoming airports becomes the default choice for both private and commercial coverage.
The revenue structure the airport negotiated — a flat hangar lease plus a capped share of gross receipts — reflects how these deals are typically sized to the volume a small-market maintenance shop can realistically generate rather than to airport-wide traffic growth. Passenger counts and maintenance capacity are separate threads here: the surge tied to the CRJ550 swap and added flights explains commercial demand, but it does not by itself guarantee Wingman's contract scales with it.
The unresolved FBO litigation with GateOne remains the item most likely to shape what the airport does next, since a permanent operator selection depends on how that dispute and the pending new request for proposals play out.
