Empty Hangars and No Waitlist? The FAA Has Two Approved Paths

Plenty of airports have hangars sitting empty and a waiting list of exactly nobody. Looking the other way while a boat moves in is the wrong answer. The FAA provides two approved ways to fill the space, and both are more usable than most sponsors think.

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We covered what the FAA's hangar use policy allows inside an occupied hangar a few weeks ago: the interference test, the car parked next to the airplane, the line between incidental storage and a violation. This post is about the other situation, the one the interference test does not address.

The hangar is empty. Nobody is on the waitlist. A local business owner would happily pay rent to store equipment there, and the revenue would genuinely help the airport. Can you take the deal?

Under the FAA's Policy on the Non-Aeronautical Use of Airport Hangars, published at 81 Federal Register 38906 in 2016, the answer is yes, through one of two approval paths. The conditions attached to them are where sponsors get into trouble, so read them closely. As always, this is a general explainer rather than legal advice, and your FAA Airports District Office is the authority on any specific request.

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Path One: Interim Use Approval

Where hangars are unoccupied and there is no current aviation demand, the sponsor can ask the FAA Office of Airports to approve interim non-aeronautical use, generally for a period of three to five years, with lease terms that let the airport recover the space on 30 days' notice for aeronautical purposes.

This is the path for a longer-term arrangement with a specific tenant: a multi-year lease to a business that needs storage or workspace and understands the airport can take the space back.

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Path Two: An Approved Month-to-Month Plan

A sponsor can get advance written approval of a plan to lease vacant hangars month to month, with each lease containing an enforceable 30-day vacate provision. Once the plan is approved, the sponsor can lease under it without going back to the FAA each time.

This is the path for ongoing vacancy management. The approval attaches to the plan, not to each individual tenant, so filling a unit becomes an administrative act instead of a federal request.

A request under either path should include an inventory of aeronautical and non-aeronautical land and uses, vacancy information, the procedure for handling new aeronautical requests, and assurance that the facilities can be returned to aeronautical use.

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The Two Conditions That Trip People Up

First, the rent has to be fair market value. The policy is explicit that a sponsor must charge non-aeronautical fair market rental fees for non-aeronautical use of airport property, even on an interim basis. You cannot rent a hangar to a boat owner at the T-hangar rate. The aeronautical rate is a cost-recovery rate; the non-aeronautical rate is a market rate, and charging less than market to a non-aviation tenant is treated as revenue diversion under the FAA's Revenue Use Policy.

Second, aeronautical use takes priority even when the non-aeronautical tenant would pay more. The policy says aeronautical use must be accommodated over non-aeronautical use even if the rental rate for the non-aeronautical use would be higher. When a based aircraft owner shows up wanting the space, the 30-day recapture clause is not decorative. It is the promise that made the arrangement approvable.

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What the FAA Expects From You Either Way

The 2016 policy is not just a standard for tenants. It sets expectations for sponsors, and they apply whether or not you ever seek interim use approval.

It says sponsors should have a program to routinely monitor use of hangars and take measures to eliminate and prevent unapproved non-aeronautical use. It says FAA personnel conducting a land use or compliance inspection may ask for a copy of that program and for evidence that the sponsor has limited hangars to aeronautical use. It says sponsors should minimize the length of time people spend on a waiting list.

And it includes a consequence that gets a finance director's attention: the FAA may disapprove an AIP grant for hangar construction if there are existing hangars at the airport being used for non-aeronautical purposes.

The policy also suggests sponsors consider adding a lease provision, including in aeronautical leases, that adjusts rental rates to fair market value for any non-incidental non-aeronautical use. That is a cleaner enforcement tool than eviction, and it converts a compliance problem into a rate problem.

One more thing worth knowing about inspections. The policy notes that the FAA conducts land use inspections at 18 selected airports each year, at least two in each of the nine FAA regions. Out of roughly 3,300 airports in the national plan, that is not a high probability in any given year. It is also not zero, and a tenant complaint can bring attention on a schedule of its own.

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No Tenant Has a Right to Any of This

Section V of the policy makes clear that it neither creates nor constitutes a right to store non-aeronautical items in hangars. A sponsor is free to restrict or prohibit that storage entirely.

So the FAA's tolerance is a ceiling, not a floor on what your airport must allow. If your lease says nothing but aircraft, that lease governs. The advice for sponsors is to apply whatever rule you choose consistently, because selective enforcement is where economic discrimination complaints come from.

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The Practical Playbook

If you have vacancy and no aeronautical demand:

• Use the interim or month-to-month path rather than looking the other way. It is available, and it is defensible.
• Document the vacancy and the empty waitlist before you apply. That record is the justification.
• Charge fair market rent and put the 30-day recapture clause in every non-aeronautical lease.
• Write down your hangar use monitoring program, even if it is one page. The FAA may ask for it.
• The moment aeronautical demand returns, honor it, and keep the record showing you did.

The unglamorous requirement underneath all of it is knowing, at any moment, which hangars are occupied, by what, under which lease terms, and who is waiting. That is the record the Hangar Direct platform keeps current, including the waitlist that proves the vacancy was real.

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Sources

• Policy on the Non-Aeronautical Use of Airport Hangars, 81 FR 38906 (June 15, 2016). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2016-06-15/html/2016-14133.htm
• FAA, Frequently Asked Questions on FAA Policy on Use of Hangars at Obligated Airports. https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_compliance/hangar_use
• FAA Policy and Procedures Concerning the Use of Airport Revenue, 64 FR 7696 (Feb. 16, 1999)