Wilding bows out

James "Jim" Wilding retired in May after over 40 years at the two Washington DC-area airports, capping a career that included the chairmanship of a major industry group and the position as an advocate of increased international air service for secondary US gateways.

Wilding's recent positions were president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the body that has leased both Reagan Washington National and Washington Dulles airports from the government since 1987. Wilding joined the federal government in 1959, "fresh out of engineering school, back when Dulles was being built", he says.

Wilding became MWAA director when it won control of the airports in 1987. Dulles has since grown from having "just a handful of overseas flights to London and Paris and little else to rank as a major gateway", says Wilding, and MWAA invested $2 billion in the airports up to 1997.

Wilding led US Airports for Better International Service, which he says was "instrumental in getting the federal government to broaden out from the currency of its international aviation negotiations". Dulles is the only one of the non-traditional gateways to have gained services since.

DAVID FIELD WASHINGTON

Source: Airline Business