Board Meeting Includes Welcome of New Director, Approval of New Chief Revenue Officer

At its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority board of directors received updates on airline flight and location changes at both Ronald Reagan Washington National and Washington Dulles International airports to accommodate the growth and shifts of flight activity related to recent regulatory changes and business demands.

August and September brought significant changes at both airports. Frontier Airlines launched its first flights at Dulles International with fanfare, cake and the giveaway of a year of free flights to two lucky winners. The low-fare airline began service to 14 destinations from Dulles International, with four more destinations scheduled to begin flights in October and November. By the end of the year, Frontier will fly to 18 destinations from Dulles International, operating 78 flights a week.

At Reagan National, which is one of the few federally regulated or ‘slot controlled’ airports in the country, air service shifts resulting from the divestiture of slots by the new American Airlines began to take full effect. JetBlue and Southwest Airlines each began operating new flights with slots acquired from American Airlines. Both Southwest and JetBlue, as well as Virgin America – the third recipient of new slots from the divestiture – will launch flights to additional destinations throughout the remainder of the year.

In order to accommodate those new flights, JetBlue moved its operations from Reagan National’s Terminal A to Terminal B and has begun using Gates 26, 28, 30 and 32. Frontier Airlines, Sun Country Airlines and Air Canada will move into the ticketing space in Terminal A previously occupied by JetBlue and Southwest will expand its gates and ticket counters in Terminal A to accommodate its growth.

American Airlines had previously ended some flights because of the slot divestiture, causing a temporary dip in airline operations at the airport while the new service gets up and running.

A full breakdown of new air service can be found here.

View the full June and July air stats for both Reagan National and Dulles International here.

The board also welcomed a new director at the meeting. Richard A. Kennedy, the third and final presidential appointee, brings the board to its full 17-member complement.

Kennedy is a nationally recognized expert in the elevator and escalator industry. He is president and CEO of Kencor, Inc., an elevator systems company and is currently a director of the Elevator Contractor Council for the Association of Building Contractors.

The board of directors also approved the hiring of Jerome L. Davis as the new executive vice president and chief revenue officer for the Airports Authority. The newly created position recognizes the Airport’s Authority’s strategic objective to keep costs low for airlines and travelers by maximizing potential revenue from other sources.

Davis brings extensive sales and marketing experience in leading large, complex growth oriented organizations, including Procter & Gamble, Maytag, Waste Management and Frito Lay.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, established in 1987 by the governments of Virginia and the District of Columbia, manages and operates Washington’s Ronald Reagan National and Dulles International airports, which together serve more than 40 million passengers a year. The Airports Authority also operates and maintains the Dulles Airport Access Road and the Dulles Toll Road and manages construction of the Silver Line project, a 23-mile extension of the Washington region’s Metrorail system into Loudoun County, Virginia. No tax dollars are used to operate the toll road, which is funded by toll revenues, or the airports, which are funded through aircraft landing fees, rents and revenues from concessions. The Silver Line construction is funded by a combination of toll-road revenues, airport contributions and federal, state and local government appropriations. The Airports Authority is led by a 17-member board of directors appointed by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and the president of the United States.