The Brunner family has begun the legal process of seeking financial compensation from Yavapai County and the Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority.
Milly Brunner and her late husband were the owners of Dakota Territory Tours. Their son, Eric Brunner, incorporated Solid Edge Aviation LLC in 1999 to manage Dakota. Dakota, in turn, operated Sedona Air Tours out of the Sedona Airport until SOCAA decided to restrict tour operations at the airport to one provider in 2017. The SOCAA contract was eventually awarded to Dakota’s competitor, Guidance Air, which set off years of legal proceedings.
Dakota later filed for bankruptcy and is liquidating its assets.
On July 18, Milly Brunner sent SOCAA and the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors a letter of demand offering to “waive her claims for intentional torts and punitive damages” if she and Solid Edge Aviation are compensated for lost income and equipment worth $10.3 million and are allowed to operate tours out of the Sedona airport again, including access to “hangar and retail space, access to the helipads, no landing fees and the ability to furnish her own fuel.”
These requirements are a specific response to the airport’s previous discriminatory actions, including, according to U.S. District Court filings, “prohibiting Dakota from using helipads, forcing Dakota to purchase fuel from Sedona Airport at inflated prices, improperly trying to remove Dakota from the storefront/check-in-counter space and revoking Dakota’s hangar lease.”
Brunner sought a total of $9.7 million from the county, including $1 million for the loss of five years of revenue; $5.1 million for the value of four aircraft, parts and a hangar; $1.4 million for the loss of additional assets; and $2.1 million for legal fees. Solid Edge sought a total of $577,669, including $143,669 for lost income, $184,000 for the loss of two vehicles and auto insurance, and $250,000 for past and future pension plan contributions.
“Solid Edge had one customer, which was Dakota,” the letter of demand stated. “When Dakota went out of business, Solid Edge’s income was reduced to zero. Fortunately, Solid Edge has been able to secure a new customer until the end of 2023. But the revenues and benefits it generates today are substantially less, and there is no promise for the future.”
The letter included a deadline of Wednesday, July, 26. The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors met in a closed-door executive session on Wednesday, Aug. 2, and were briefed by Assistant County Manager Martin Brennan regarding the Brunner’s letter. Brennan did not respond to a request for comment. If the county fails to respond, the Brunners’ attorney Kent Ellsworth, of Silver State Law, indicated that their next step will be to file a lawsuit in federal court to seek damages.
Ellsworth said that the Brunners have a strong case, as the FAA has already determined twice that SOCAA and the county have committed economic discrimination.
“[SOCAA and Yavapai County] continue to deny there’s a problem [and] incur so much money in attorneys’ fees of taxpayers’ money,” Ellsworth said. “All in the name of justifying their position that they did not discriminate. Well, somebody already found that you did discriminate, and they’re the ones that hold the purse strings, meaning the FAA.” Yavapai County and SOCAA have so far spent nearly $3 million in legal fees fighting the Brunners, with SOCAA’s costs alone coming to around $600,000 annually during the last several years.
SOCAA representatives declined to comment on the letter of demand.
“Here’s what Milly wants,” Ellsworth said. “She says, ‘My husband and I had Dakota, we were operating out of the Sedona Airport. I want to go back to what we had before they started their discrimination. I want to have a presence at the Sedona Airport, where we can do tours, like we did before.’ So obviously it wouldn’t be Dakota because that had to file bankruptcy. She would have to form a new company and begin operating anew out of the Sedona airport.”
Ellsworth also noted that in Milly Brunner’s view, SOCAA has not yet addressed what she refers to as the “fixing the problem” side of the matter. The FAA has ordered SOCAA to prepare a corrective action plan that will “require they treat Milly like they treat all the other operators out there, and they’re simply not.”
Airport manager Ed Rose told the Sedona City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 8, that SOCAA’s legal counsel is in the process of preparing the required plan.
IKG Air
This spring, Cottonwood Municipal Airport manager Jeffrey Tripp approved IKG Air LLC, a division of Adventurous Antelope Canyon Tours, based in Page, to offer fixed wing and helicopter tours out of the Cottonwood airport. Eric
Brunner’s company Solid Edge Aviation is currently managing the “operational side” of that business and Solid Edge pilots are flying aircraft for IKG Air.
IKG Air is a Navajo-owned private aviation company that was established in 2020 to provide tours and air transportation for tribal governments. It currently operates in Northern Arizona and is looking to expand throughout the west.
“The goal of the Navajo-owned air company is to offer air service and tours to Sedona and the Grand Canyon area, expanding the tour offerings to highly-visited Arizona destinations.
Air operations and tours are scheduled to begin in the second quarter 2023,” the company said in a Feb. 7 press release.
Ellsworth said that IKGAir purchased some of Dakota’s assets during its bankruptcy proceedings.
Based on the company’s marketing materials and the FAA’s registration database, these include a 1978 Bell 206B3 helicopter valued at $750,000 and possibly a 1990 Bell 206L helicopter valued at $1.1 million.
“After you have the opportunity to tour Upper Antelope Canyon with us, we invite you to explore the skies of Sedona with our newly-acquired sister company, Sedona AirTours,” Adventurous Antelope Canyon Tours posted on its Facebook page on June 19. Solid Edge is currently operating as Sedona Air Tours.
NIMBYism Aloft
At the end of Rose’s presentation to the Sedona City Council, Councilman Pete Furman asked Rose if any tour operators in the area have not signed the Sedona Fly Friendly Agreement, which is a voluntary agreement that limits the hours in which air tour companies can take off and land.
The agreement also excludes flying directly over the city or over sensitive archaeological sites such as Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot national monuments.
“Yes, there [is] one operator out of Cottonwood who has gone bankrupt, and has since emerged from bankruptcy with Native American money from backers,” Rose said. “He’s flying out of Cottonwood, annoying people everyday now, especially those around Tuzigoot.”
“He likes to fly low,” Rose alleged. “I’m talking about 200 feet over the top-level structures. This is not acceptable. Because these antics have resurfaced, I’ve gone right to the tribe, said, ‘look, you need to get your investment under control. So this is a Native American site that they’re disrespecting. I expect that you would like them respected. Please talk with them.’”
Rose later confirmed he was speaking about Sedona Air Tours and claimed that the actions he mentioned are incompatible with FAA’s rules on flight near noise-sensitive areas. However, the FAA has no such rule on flight near noise-sensitive areas.
Instead, the agency has issued advisory circular AC 91-36D to encourage — not require — pilots to allow greater separation in certain areas than required by federal aviation regulations.
“Pilots operating noise-producing aircraft,” i.e., fixed-wing, rotary-wing and hot air balloons, “over noise-sensitive areas should make every effort to fly not less than 2,000 feet above ground level, weather permitting,” the advisory states. Rose also referred to the company’s “previous antics,” which he alleged included flying low over animals, flying over fuel containers at the Sedona Airport, flying over other helicopters and flying over and under other aircraft on approach and departure.
Tripp said that the Cottonwood airport has received several complaints of Solid Edge flying too low, which he has forwarded to the FAA as the regulatory body, but has not received complaints related to the other alleged behaviors such as flying over fuel storage areas.
Ellsworth commented that if Solid Edge is being accused of flying inappropriately when its pilots are not doing so, such accusations continue what he sees as a pattern of mistreatment and harassment.
