Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin Dillon said he’s withdrawn his application for a similar job in Florida so he can stay and complete his mission — to add more domestic flights to Bradley International Airport’s roster and expand international routes beyond Bradley’s new Aer Lingus offering.
After a slow few years, activity is accelerating, he said Thursday.
“I started to put a lot of things into motion, and I’d like to see them through,” Dillon said. “The only reason I was considered for that job is that my five-year contract is up in July, and you can’t really pick and choose when these opportunities come up.”
Dillon was a finalist for the executive director’s position at Lee County Airport Authority, which oversees Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida. He currently supervises Bradley International Airport and the state’s five smaller general aviation airports. His annual salary is $300,510.
“The board has indicated a desire to keep me here,” Dillon said. “What I’m hoping for is another five-year base term.”
He counts as successes the latest new routes at Bradley with more possibilities in the air.
“Our Los Angeles route, which started in June, is doing fantastic, and we have very high load factors on it,” Dillon said, “and the initial Aer Lingus flights to and from Dublin, which started Sept. 28, seem to be doing very, very well, so we’re very optimistic about success of those routes.”
Both routes brought Bradley a lot of attention, he said.
“A lot of other airlines are looking at us now,” Dillon said. “We’re getting inquiries from other international carriers that are starting to look to learn about the area and the airport, and hopefully that translates into additional service.”
But the current focus is on insuring that the Aer Lingus service is successful, Dillon said. That will take support from the business community, particularly during winter when there’s less tourist travel.
About 80 percent of Aer Lingus’ sales are U.S.-based, Dillon said, “and you need to send out a number of full flights before you start getting full flights back. We feel that within the next couple of weeks that we’ll be at the point where there are full loads in both directions.”
He wants the flights to be so full that Aer Lingus has to add planes. “We won’t be satisfied until we have every seat sold on every flight,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bradley’s latest passenger numbers for July and August and for January through August are up, but not a lot, although the upward trend continues.
In July 2016 there were 540,200, up 1.1 percent from 534,247 in July 2016. In August 2016 Bradley had 533,282 passengers, up 2.4 percent from 521,000 in August 2015. In the period January through August 2016, the number was 4,017,293, up 1 percent from 3,978,237 in the same period in 2015.
