Out of the Eye of the Storm at FLL ...

... surfaces a voice of reason, Kent G. George. The director of Pittsburgh International Airport was hired this week to direct Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport, following a series of missteps in a highly publicized search by Broward County commissioners. Their vote for George was unanimous – it should be. George has the credentials; more importantly, he has the experience of today’s airport business, an arena in which airports must plan around a highly volatile airline industry and balance growth with vocal community opposition. In what could be called a crowning achievement for any airport director, he managed through the crisis – in very visible public view – that was dropped in his lap when US Airways decided to abandon its Pittsburgh hub and basically leave the Allegheny County Airport Authority holding the bag. Significantly, he was able to attract new low-cost air service, changing the business model of Pittsburgh International, while striving to maintain airport employment levels. George survived the turmoil at Pittsburgh International and in the process reinvented the future of the airport, which suggests the folks at FLL may just have hired the person who can pull their airport out of its quagmire. Much of the heated community opposition to FLL has been about growth, with the polarizing element a parallel runway extension for what is currently a predominantly GA runway. (The runway extension debate has been ongoing for two decades.) I had the opportunity a few years back to sit with former long-time FLL director George Spofford, who said then that his own crowning achievement at the airport was getting neighbors to “buy in†to the runway extension. After that, he said, he retired. Problem was, the growth of low-cost air service at FLL thereafter was geometric, as was the population growth of surrounding cities. With the population growth came more vocal opposition. What ultimately killed the runway extension “dealâ€, Spofford would relate, was the fact that the subsequent administration proposed an aggressive expansion to tie together the airport and the popular nearby port facilities, which feature a daily array of cruise ships arriving and departing. That initiative just served to reinvigorate the neighbors. It wasn’t that the grandiose plan to connect the port to the airport was a bad idea, Spofford said, it was just that it was the wrong plan for this community. The neighborhood groups that had signed on for the runway extension felt betrayed, and their numbers had grown. Since that time, instead of FLL shining as a beacon of economic development and low-cost carrier growth, it has instead turned into the poster child of what can go wrong when a community and its airport no longer share a vision – angry cats on steroids comes to mind. Calming the waters at FLL isn’t an easy task. The Broward County commissioners may have just taken the first important step. Thanks for reading.