The airports guy in DC: Principato's principles

For so many in this business, it all began with an instant romance with flight, a lifelong affair with aircraft and the whole compelling game. Not so for Gregory Principato (pictured), even growing up near the flight paths of the Newark airport in New Jersey. For Greg, as most everyone in Washington calls him, the flight syndrome caught on when his work lawyering showed the tremendous importance of airports as engines of economic development and tools of trade. So now it's a full time affair for him as the head of the Airports Council International - North America (ACI-NA), the Washington affiliate of the global body.

Principato took over last summer when David Z Plavin, the longtime voice of airports on Capitol Hill and in the capital, decided to leave after some 15 years at the helm of the trade group. At the time, Greg was working for his long-time mentor, former Virginia governor Gerald L Baliles, in a Washington law firm; there, they had worked on international aviation, liberalisation, and on the thorny issue of international limits on aircraft emissions. Baliles, noted as a progressive governor in a deeply conservative state, had also headed a 1993 presidential commission on the airline industry.

This is all a long way from Russian studies, the course that Greg pursued in college as part of goal to enter the foreign or diplomatic service. "Well, that didn't work out, but working on international trade issues with the Governor (as Baliles was called even in his laweyring days) taught me a lot about the value of airports as economic hubs," he says, calling Baliles "the best boss and mentor I have ever had". Among the issues that he worked on while under Baliles' tutelage were an agreement between the then US Air and its Air Line Pilots Association and the US-Japan air services treaty. Together, they were instrumental in the transfer of the capital's two airports-Washington National and Dulles International  - from federal control to local management, a task that gave Greg exposure to the many parties and stakeholders and the questions of local pride and possession that colour most major airport negotiations. 

These issues gave Principato a diplomat's rather than a litigator's approach to conflict; he puts it this way: "you can resolve things when you focus not on difference but on the goals you want to achieve".  Of course, Principato is spared one of the most contentious issues in the airports world, the increasingly heated dispute over airport fees and charges and the airlines' complaint that they are paying for Taj Mahals and White Elephants. He says, "I think we just don't have the issue here in the states to the same degree that you've seen it in Europe." The issue that US airports do have is the looming question of how the federal government will rewrite the formula for paying for the US aviation and airport system. It must do so before September of next year, when the current law expires, and the battle has already begun over proposed fees for air-traffic services, a battle that has already set important US aviation groups apart in opposing camps. The airports have avoided joining one camp or another, and instead, says Principato, "We'll look at all the possible alternatives because the approach we have now just doesn't work. The old ticket-tax formula, in which FAA revenues go down as air fares go down, must be replaced. Our basic view is that everyone ought to come to the table with an open mind instead of set positions. We have to be prepared to set aside attitudes and take a fresh look."  Between now and then, security issues and questions will take up much of ACI-NA's time, and here, Greg sees his challenge as "reminding the security folks that the same solution doesn't work at all airports everywhere. Once you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport." For these thorny and long-term issues, the diplomat's touch will be the one that may well go farther than the litigator's tools.