This year’s Sea and Sky Air Show will be a little less crowded in the skies over Jacksonville Beach

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — When you look up the sky this year, you’re only going to see the military aircraft. All the civilian performers have dropped out, and it has to do with the rising cost of insurance.

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If you look online, the 2023 Sea and Sky Air Show schedule only has the military teams performing -- including the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

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For some locals, this doesn’t bother them.

“I personally think it’s always been about the military,” Jacksonville resident Anthony Rhome said. “I mean, because you really go to see the Blue Angels and the stunts.”

But for others, it does.

“That just throws the whole thing away that everyone wants to go see,” Jacksonville resident Ron Davis Jr. said. “You’re not gonna be able to see everything that you want to see.”

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In the past, the performers included civilian private planes too. But that’s not the case this year.

I spoke with one of the civilian pilots who was scheduled to perform next weekend. They tell me they didn’t sign a contract with the city because of the increase in insurance liability costs. They told me the standard coverage across the country is about one million dollars. But adds the city was asking for more coverage, a cost that private pilots cannot afford.

In an emailed statement, a city spokesperson confirmed this saying, “premiums for all lines of insurance have increased over the last few years, including liability coverage for this event.”

The pilot I spoke with said never in their career have they seen all the civilian performers drop out of an air show the way they apparently did for this one in Jacksonville.

Since there are fewer performers, the once all-day event will now just be a three-hour event, each day. Ron Davis Jr says this is a bummer.

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“It sucks that it will only be for three hours,” Davis said. “You go there a whole day to see the whole show.”

On the other, Anthony Rhome says he doesn’t mind the time change, saying he likes the shorter day.

“That way you can get up, go see the show,” Rhome said. “And then you still got the rest of your day to do whatever you need to do with his work or play.”

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And, Action News Jax is still waiting to hear back from the city about why they increased the liability cost.

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