California FBO Five Rivers Jet Center Opens Second Location at Wyoming's Riverton Regional Airport

Five Rivers Jet Center, a California-based fixed-base operator, has expanded to Riverton Regional Airport (KRIW) in Wyoming, roughly 120 miles east of Jackson, according to CEO Pete Sandhu. The Wyoming facility had gone several years without a dedicated industry operator, having been run under the name Classic Air Medical by a local hospital that provided only basic aviation services to maintain its aeromedical transport capabilities.

After the acquisition, Five Rivers expanded the facility's offerings to include a full suite of ground handling services, including deicing. The existing 8,650-sq-ft terminal is slated for renovation to add a modern lobby, 15 individual offices, a pilot lounge, a full kitchen, and private showers, alongside a 10,000-sq-ft heated hangar capable of accommodating light jets and turboprops. The FBO manages fueling for commercial operations at KRIW through its fuel farm, which holds 15,000 gallons of Jet-A and an equal capacity of avgas.

Five Rivers has joined its new KRIW facility to the Avfuel-branded dealer network, offering contract fuel and the Avtrip customer loyalty program along with integrated safety and quality control training; its original California location was already an Avfuel partner. Sandhu called the move "an exciting opportunity to bring the Five Rivers experience to a new market." Jonathan Boyle, Avfuel's vice president of sales for contract and bulk fuel, said the expansion "further strengthens its reputation as a premier FBO provider and brings enhanced services to operators traveling through central Wyoming." KRIW has an 8,200-foot main runway.

This is a common route into new markets for regional FBO groups: a facility that existed to support one tenant's mission, in this case a hospital's air-ambulance service, gets converted into a full-service operation once an operator sees enough transient and based traffic to justify the investment. The renovation plan for the terminal and the addition of deicing and full ground handling are the signals that a location is moving from single-purpose infrastructure to a commercial FBO competing for itinerant business.

Joining the Avfuel dealer network matters here because fuel branding and loyalty programs like Avtrip are how a new or lesser-known FBO signals reliability to operators who have never landed at that airport before; the fuel farm capacity of 15,000 gallons each of Jet-A and avgas sets a ceiling on how much commercial volume the site can absorb before further investment is needed. Whether the KRIW location draws enough business jet and turboprop traffic to justify the planned terminal and hangar upgrades will depend on how central Wyoming's charter and private traffic patterns evolve, and that will show up in how quickly Five Rivers moves from renovation plans to completed construction.