Airport Experience® News - ACDBE 2023

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR

S O C AL SUCCESS Ontario International Is Setting Records In California’s Inland Empire

BY C AROL WARD

ditor’s Note: Ontario International Airport (ONT) is located about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Operated for many years by Los Angeles World Airports , in November 2016, airport ownership was transferred from Los Angeles to a joint authority of the city of Ontario and San Bernardino County. Rapid growth ensued, and by 2018 ONT was one of the fastest growing airports in the U.S. Now, post-pandemic, ONT remains in a strong growth phase with volume exceeding 2019 levels. In 2022, the airport served 5.7 million passengers. Atif Elkadi was named CEO of the Ontario International Airport Authority in March 2022. In a conversation with AXN’s Carol Ward, Elkadi outlined his vision for the airport going forward. E

WARD: It’s been roughly six years since Ontario International Airport separated from Los Angeles World Airports. Since then, the airport has experienced massive growth. Can you walk me through that journey? ELKADI: The transfer happened November 1, 2016 and I started as a senior director of marketing in November 2017. Our Board of Commissioners has done a great job in just being very clear about what their vision is and what they want the airport to accomplish for the community. Our focus has been maintaining our easy-in, easy out experience and providing different amenities that hadn’t been available at the airport, and also providing the different options for flights for the community. We’re really focusing on our people - the people that work here and our partners. In the past you would see stores shuttered or maybe open just a couple of hours. Now we have an Urban Crave. We have a Chick-fil-A that’s about to open. We have a brewery and we’ve got a lot of new things to provide to our guests for them to be able to enjoy the airport. Also, cargo has always been a staple of this airport, but we really helped kind of take it to the next level by introducing a new facility for FedEx that they built, which was approximately $350 million that opened in November of 2020. Amazon and its Prime Air really saw a lot of growth during that time.

WARD: You’ve been CEO since March 2022. What are your key goals as you manage this post-pandemic, high-growth phase of the airport? ELKADI: For me, it’s really important to make sure that we implement and really accomplish the goals the board has set out. That entails continuing to grow the options for travel domestically and internationally, continuing to add different elements to the customer experience and really focusing on our people and growing our culture internally. We’re now considered to be a medium hub. People need to understand that we’re not an alternative to other airports in Southern California; we’re actually a great option as a gateway into Southern California. WARD: You mentioned the board’s goal of having an easy-in, easy-out airport. Is that becoming more difficult as passenger numbers rise? ELKADI: No. Having that goal has really prepared us to do the proper planning and put the proper things in place to make sure that we don’t have the congestion that you might see at other places. We’re not seeing a lot of challenges, but we still have work to do because we know the growth will continue. For example, we’re working with the San Bernardino County Transportation Association. They’re working on building a tunnel from the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station that will take you directly to the airport. That tunnel will

Above: Atif Elkadi, CEO of the Ontario International Airport Authority.

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