City Of Tulsa, American Airlines Extend Sublease To 2048 – Tulsa World

The city of Tulsa and American Airlines recently extended their leasing agreement to nearly the midway point of the century.

The pact between the Tulsa Municipal Airport Trust (TMAT) and the Fort Worth-based airline, approved Thursday, amends and restates the June, 1958 sublease and its subsequent 18 amendments, incorporating the language into one document and eliminating provisions no longer needed.

As part of the agreement, American, the oldest and largest tenant at Air Force Plant No. 3 with about 5,200 employees, must pay TMAT $217,597 in base “ground rentals” in 2022, an annual rate that nearly triples before the sublease expires in 2048.

“This amended lease further solidifies Tulsa’s relationship with American Airlines for decades to come, paving the way for American’s plans to invest half a billion dollars in the Tulsa Base,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said in a statement.

“I want to extend a big thanks to Tulsa International Airport, City of Tulsa, and American Airlines staff who have spent the past several years working behind the scenes to structure this new lease. American has stood as Tulsa’s largest employer for 75 years, and we are thrilled they will continue to claim that title for years to come.”

Air Force Plant No. 3 (AFP3) is located at the southeast corner of Tulsa International Airport. A holdover from World War II, when more than 3,000 aircraft were manufactured in the facility, the mile-long building complex contains about 2.9 million square feet of industrial space that houses tenants such as American and Spirit AeroSystems.

The extended sublease between TMAT and American also modernizes much of the decades-old language, updates the legal description of the leased premises (246.14 acres) from a current survey and provides for more robust reporting between American and the airport, the city said.

In addition, the sublease provides a more structured and simplified rental escalation component that ultimately allows TMAT to collect more revenue in order to support Tulsa International Airport Operations. Rentals paid to TMAT must be remitted to the Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust annually.

The base ground rentals grow to $298,924 by 2032 and $584,537 in 2042 before topping out at $635,941 the year before (2047) the sublease expires.

American Airlines has begun work on $550 million worth of upgrades American it pledged in February 2020 to Tech Ops-Tulsa, the largest commercial aviation maintenance base in the world.

Among the main upgrades proposed are a 132,000-square-foot base support building and a 193,000-square-foot hangar that will hold two wide-body aircraft and replace two existing hangars no longer equipped to fully hold American’s current planes.