Deborah Flint, the black woman leading Los Angeles largest airports

Deborah Flint is another remarkable black woman who has shifted the paradigm. She is the CEO of two of the largest and busiest airports in the United States.

Flint has been in charge of enhancing the passenger experience of travelers in and out of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) owns and operates LAX and Van Nuys Airports – two of the largest and busiest airports in the country. In 2006, LAX the fourth busiest airport in the world had over 3,000 employees serving 80.9 million passengers.

In 2005, Flint was appointed by the Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to help make Los Angeles’ airports world-class and according to reports, she has already spearheaded $14 billion of investments for the airport’s existing roads, terminals, and associated transportation facilities

Describing her, Mayor Garcetti said Flint is an extraordinary leader whose ingenuity, patience, and uncommon commitment have helped bring LAX to the doorstep of transformational change.

He added: “She has put in motion all the key pieces of LAX’s modernization, from the contracts and groundbreakings for the Automated People Mover train and other state-of-the-art facilities to the team that will build the airport of the future to welcome the world in 2028.”

Flint graduated from California State University and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from San Jose State University.

Her work has prepared LAX for a large expansion that could add up to two new terminals and nearly two dozen new gates to help handle the influx of travelers headed to the city for the 2028 Olympic Games.

The expansion plans include reconfiguring existing airplane runways, as well as the northern end of the airport, where earlier plans to retool runway facilities produced an outcry from neighboring communities concerned about noise, pollution, and other negative impacts.

She’s been managing the $8.5 billion LAX modernization project, the largest public works project in the history of Los Angeles.

She has an oversight role in the development and advancement of security policies and strategies that exceed federal security regulations and provide world-class law enforcement for the protection of the public.

Prior to LAWA, Flint worked for five years at Port of Oakland as the aviation director. She was responsible for the management, business development, and operation of Oakland International Airport (OAK).

While there, she delivered the $480-milliion BART Airport Rail project; redesigned OAK’s customer experience; and marketed, developed and negotiated numerous development and investment transactions in terminal renovation and hangar development.

Flint has also served on President Obama’s Advisory Committee on Aviation Consumer Protection and serves on the Oversight Committee of the Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program.

She is a director on the Airports Council International World Board, a president of the California Airports Council. She serves on the FAA Drone Advisory Committee, which was formed in 2016 to advise the Federal Aviation Administration on unmanned aerial systems.

She has signed contracts, put shovels in the ground, and implemented robust oversight programs for some of the most ambitious projects at any airport in the world and in Los Angeles history.

Sometime this year, the Canadian-born airport executive will resume her new role as president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority that operates Toronto Pearson Airport, according to reports.

“I look forward to watching the amazing LAWA team bring these projects to fruition and truly achieve our vision of gold standard airports, delivered,” she said.