ARLINGTON — By the company’s own admission, its new features took a little while to arrive, but Arlington Flight Services’ self-serve fuel system and ramp expansion has opened and is ready for business.

“We were on a bit of a sliding timeline,” said Lucas Smith, flight operations director for AFS. “There were a few details to hammer out.”

Nonetheless, the new fuel tanks outside of the AFS hangar have always been part of the company’s overall strategy of becoming as much of a one-stop full-service shop as possible.

“We even provide ethanol-free automotive fuel, which is increasingly difficult to come by,” said Smith, who also touted their 100 octane and jet fuels. “It’s another piece of the pie as far as revenue sources are concerned, because it means we’re not paying a competitor to refuel our aircraft.”

The new fuel tanks outside the AFS hangar are sitting on new asphalt as well, since the company installed a ramp that allows the business to service other pilots’ aircraft more easily.

“Prior to this ramp extension, pilots had to park on the airport’s general aviation ramp and then come to us,” Smith said. “This way, potential customers don’t have to look for us, and we can do just about whatever maintenance they need. A delay of even 10 minutes can be incredibly frustrating, so we want to be able to take care of them right here.”

Smith acknowledged that the new ramp also facilitates the company’s flight instruction business.

“It’s nice to be able to fuel up our own aircraft, and to be able to move in and out so smoothly,” Smith said. “We always love to have folks come out to talk to us about getting trained up as pilots. It’s such a unique experience to be able to fly your own aircraft. It’s so different from being a passenger in bigger planes. You get a unique viewpoint of the whole Pacific Northwest this way, that you really can’t capture any other way.”

The AFS self-serve fuel system and ramp expansion were ready for the scheduled arrival of Jack Wiegand, the youngest person to fly solo around the world, to the Arlington Municipal Airport, and to the AFS hangar in particular, on the weekend of Saturday, June 8.

“He touched down in Japan, and then Anchorage,” Smith said. “We were his first scheduled stop in the lower 48.”

For more information on AFS, log onto their website at www.arlingtonflightservices.com.