A growth spurt should be a positive development for any business. Yet for the management of Salt Lake City International Airport, extreme growth has translated into extreme growing pains.

Roy Williams

The problem isn’t how to fund building the facilities; with steady revenues from land use, rental cars, and landing fees, the organization’s finances are in fantastic shape. Nor is the problem getting approval from surrounding residents. To the north of the airport is the Great Salt Lake, and zoning restrictions have eliminated any possible problems to the south.

The real challenge is planning and executing a legacy. Roy Williams, executive director, said more than any other business, a change in the airline industry means leaving a footprint in the future of flight.

“In our business, it’s fairly routine for the same airplane to be used for 25 years or more and the same terminal to be used for up to 50 years,” said Williams. “We face the challenge of how to grow the facility and develop the right things. Forty-five years from now, I want my successor to look back and say that I built the right facility.”

Taking off
In the mid-’90s, a group of designers and managers gathered at the airport to develop the concept for a new terminal building. The events of September 11, 2001 occurred just as the project started to take off, and the effort was shelved. Now, in his first year with the airport, Williams has started to revive the plan and has brought that team back together.

“We recently had our first big two-day thinking session,” he said. “We focused on what the community needs now in terms of terminal and airfield capability.”

Last year, traffic through the Salt Lake City International Airport reached a record high of 22 million passengers. Half of those passengers were connecting at Salt Lake, and half of them were local. “Eleven million local passengers is an all-time record, and we anticipate that number will continue to grow,” said Williams.

Passenger trends also affect how Williams’ team will design the terminal building. Passengers coming to visit the nearby ski resorts of Salt Lake bring extra luggage. He said one major challenge is figuring out how to better handle the additional baggage. He doesn’t think other airports have sufficiently tackled the problem.

“Passengers have to come in, collect their bags, collect their skis, and then get out to the parking lot to find their transportation,” he said. “I’m challenging my team to start thinking outside of the box to see what is going to be effective and appreciated by our passengers.”

Flight guide
Salt Lake City International Airport has the second largest Delta hub in the country. Williams is working with Delta to develop flights with nonstop service to Europe. While the distance between Utah and Europe may seem too great for a nonstop flight, Williams said it’s not impossible.

“Because of the curvature of the earth, Salt Lake to Europe is not that much different than, say, Chicago to Europe,” he said. “Engineers are constantly increasing the range of modern planes, making a flight originating from Salt Lake or Phoenix a possibility.”

The real challenge to this plan is the elevation of the airport. Airplanes perform best at sea level. If a plane takes off from a high enough elevation, it may not be able to carry a full load and may not generate the necessary amount of lift or thrust. However, Williams came to Salt Lake with experience in working on this kind of problem.

“One of my responsibilities in Bolivia was supervising the operations of the La Paz airport,” he said. “That airport is 14,100 feet above sea level, the highest runway with passenger service in the world. We are at the point where modern aircraft can carry nearly a full load coming off a runway at our elevation.”

While adding this service will not significantly increase the airport’s revenue, there are considerable benefits. Williams said adding Europe to the facility’s list of nonstop destinations will strengthen the Delta hub and increase customer satisfaction.

“As more passengers flow through the Delta hub, the more cost efficient it becomes,” he said. “We want our customers to have the greatest variety of nonstop destinations. We want every airline in the world to fly here because we want customers to have that choice.”

The airport was rated the most on-time airport in the nation for departures in 2005 by the United States Department of Transportation, and JD Power has consistently rated it as one of the top 10 airports for customer service for a number of years. Williams said that despite his closest competition being almost 300 miles away, maintaining his airport’s reputation for excellence continues to be a top priority.

“When I was in Dayton, Ohio, there were three other major airports in a 110-mile radius so the competitive factor was clearly defined,” he said. “Here, we have to define it by just saying we’re trying to be the most pleasant, clean, friendly place we can be. Customer service in the airline business is schedule frequency and choice of carriers, and we want to maximize that as much as we can for our customers.”