Lloyd Hetrick wouldn’t mind if the Lawrence Municipal Airport became known as a convenience store for business jet owners.

Hetrick, president of Hetrick Air Services and operator of the city-owned airport, is hoping to land even more business from executives traveling in private jets.

Already, he said, the airport is seeing a significant increase in such business.

Lloyd Hetrick, owner of Hetrick Air Services, has been making improvements to Lawrence Municipal Airport to attract more corporate travelers to the airport.

“I think it is because businessmen don’t want to get to the airport two hours ahead of time and take their shoes off and that whole routine,” Hetrick said.

Most of the increase in airport usage so far, he said, is from business executives flying to Lawrence rather than Lawrence business leaders flying to other locations.

But Hetrick now is hoping to attract private jets flying across the country and needing to land in the Midwest to refuel. He plans to begin marketing the airport in aviation publications.

“I think we have made enough improvements out here that we’re at the level where we can start attracting that type of business,” Hetrick said. “We’re a good stopping point.”

He said a 700-foot lengthening of the airport’s main runway about two years ago made it feasible for bigger jets to land and take off.

Hetrick recently added other amenities to attract fuel-thirsty pilots. Last month, he installed wireless Internet access in the terminal building that customers can use for free. The company also added a second courtesy car to its fleet of vehicles. Customers can use the car to travel to Lawrence while their jets are refueled, a process that takes about 15 minutes.

“The plan is that we’ll initially attract them with a good price on fuel and then our service will keep them coming back,” Hetrick said.

He said the average business jet bought from 300 gallons to 400 gallons of fuel, at an estimated $2.70 per gallon. That’s about 10 times more fuel than the typical single-engine aircraft uses.

The city receives 5 cents for every gallon of fuel sold at the airport.

With more corporations and individuals buying fractional ownership interest in jets and increasing disdain for airport security and lax service on commercial airlines, usage is expected to continue to increase.

The “fractional jets,” as they’re called in the industry, allow people to purchase flight time to use over a period of usually one to five years, said Barb Jones, a program manager with Sarasota, Fla.-based JetShare U.S.

Companies like JetShare charge from $2,000 to $2,500 per flight hour, which makes such travel much more expensive than flying on a commercial airline, but much less expensive than owning a jet.

Jones said the business had been booming. The company makes several flights a year into Lawrence.

“We come to Lawrence quite a bit for basketball games,” Jones said. “We have a particular basketball announcer with ESPN who flies that way.”

The announcer? Dick Vitale.

“Our customers are mainly people who value their time and don’t want to waste it,” Jones said. “If you’ve flown a commercial airline lately, you know it is not much fun.”

Before 9-11, Hetrick estimated about two fractional jets a month would land at the Lawrence airport. Now, the average is about two a week.

“The difference is really night and day,” he said.