Manchester Airport director off to Orlando
The executive responsible for leading Manchester Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, N.H., from sleepy to booming could be headed for warmer climes.
Kevin Dillon, airport director at the New Hampshire facility since 1999, acknowledged today that he's one of five contenders to become the new executive director at the Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Fla. His talks with that airport were first reported in the Orlando Sentinel this morning.
Dillon said he was approached by an executive search firm on behalf of the Orlando airport last month and was recently notified that he'd made it through the preliminaries.
"Orlando is a great opportunity. It's one of the premier airports in the country and to have the opportunity to lead it is a great opportunity for any airport director," he said.
Dillon took over Manchester Airport after a three year stint as aviation director at Logan International Airport. Before that, he held executive jobs at both LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Since taking the helm at Manchester, he has piloted a capital improvement project that saw its two main runways lengthened, the construction of a new parking garage and surface lots that added more than 10,000 spaces and the installation of high-tech passenger and baggage screening equipment.
Passenger traffic there has grown from 1 million annually in the mid-1990s to 4.5 million in 2005.
(By Keith Reed, Globe staff)
