Page 26 - BusinessWest August 19, 2024

Final Approach
Retiring CAA Director Reflects on Growth, Potential at Bradley
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
“Business travel hasn’t come back to the level it was pre- pandemic. And that’s a question mark across the country; will the business ever get back to that level?”
KEVIN DILLON
Kevin Dillon will be retiring from his position as executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) in
January, after 12 years in that job and a half- century in the aviation industry.
As he talked with BusinessWest late last month for what will likely be the last time in his tenure, he listed a number of accom- plishments and milestones during his stint — everything from sharp increases in the number of carriers and non-stop flights at Bradley International Airport (12 and 47 are the current numbers) to the addition of trans-continental and trans-Atlantic flights; from the completion of the airport’s $210 million ground transportation center to the recent kickoff of $250 million worth of addi- tional improvements to BDL.
“We’ve accomplished most of the goals we set down when we established the air- port authority,” Dillon said. “Certainly the re-establishment of trans-Atlantic and trans- continental service was a very high priority for us, and we’ve been able to accomplish that with our Aer Lingus service and our LAX and other California service that we’ve had over the years.”
But he spent far more time with what has become his favorite subject — where this airport, the second-largest in New England, can go from here, building on the momentum gained over the past dozen years and the solid foundation that’s been built.
Indeed, Dillon has talked often over the years about Bradley reaching 10 million passengers per year (the current number is about 7 million) and what it will take to get there.
Specifically, it will take more of what the roughly 2.8 million people living and work- ing in Bradley’s catchment area (mostly those within an hour’s drive from Windsor Locks) are looking for — more carriers, more flights, and especially more non-stop
Kevin Dillon
says Bradley
has made great strides over the past decade and has the potential to eventually welcome
10 million passengers per year.
has added more non-stops via carriers such as Breeze and, most recently, Avelo, the air- port is back to roughly where it was before the pandemic, Dillon told BusinessWest.
“We’re turning over an airport that still has tremendous opportunity and potential in front of it,” he said. “Right now, we’re back
flights to more places, in this country and beyond.
Bradley was making considerable prog- ress in these efforts, increasing passenger volume from just under 6 million to 7 mil- lion, before significant headwinds, in the form of the pandemic and its after-effects, set things back, as they did at airports across the country.
But slowly but surely, as air travel has recovered in dramatic fashion and Bradley
Bradley
Continued on page 39
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