The sun is shining down on the runways of the Long Beach Airport, gleaming off the dozens of aircraft on a warm Long Beach afternoon that’s kept from being a scorcher by a cool breeze. It’s exactly the kind of weather that convinced Mario Rodriguez to leave a job he loved in New Orleans, where he served as Deputy Director of Louis Armstrong International Airport.
But today, after accepting the position of Airport Director of the Long Beach Airport five months ago, it seems there’s no place that Rodriguez would rather be than the terminal’s second-floor Legends of Aviation restaurant, where we’re enjoying a few sandwiches. A travelin’ man, Rodriguez has seen a lot in his 20-plus years in the airline industry, and has helped guide airports from New Orleans to Palm Beach, various countries in South America and even Haiti. He was convinced to bring that diverse work portfolio to Long Beach by two things: the aforementioned weather and City Manager Pat West, who impressed Rodriguez and helped him see the potential in an airport full of history but lacking in vision. After five months on the job, it seems Rodriguez is planning to draw on that rich past to construct his plan for the future.
“This is the doorway to a community, and it should reflect the community,” says Rodriguez, who stresses that convenience and hospitality are the two things that set the Long Beach Airport apart from others, and that he intends to make them even better. “Five years from now, people will be impressed when they come here. Hopefully it will give people an idea of the way travel used to be.”
Takeoff has been anything but smooth. Rodriguez took command of an airport locked into a lawsuit with local residents and exploring the idea of privatization as a last resort. Just a few weeks into his tenure, the airport came under attack as JetBlue CEO Dave Barger made comments suggesting the airline would leave Long Beach if major improvements were not made.
On a scale of 1 to 10, Rodriguez says that relations with JetBlue were once “near a 2,” but are now almost a 9.
“They thought the airport wasn’t being managed in a business-like fashion, which it wasn’t,” says Rodriguez, who met with Barger at a local In-N-Out shortly after his comments, and has made several trips to New York to meet with he and other JetBlue execs – assuring them that better things are to come in the future. That helped ease relations, Rodriguez says, adding that the airline is a helpful business partner and that he’s looking forward to a long relationship.
The airline is even assisting in developing plans for airport construction and improvements. The airport also prevailed in the PTA lawsuit and privatization – which Rodriguez has experience in after exploring the option while with New Orleans – has been put to the backburner. Things seem to be looking skyward for the future, which is what excited Rodriguez the most as he plans to implement massive improvements across the board. The public will get a taste of those plans when Rodriguez and his team present expansion ideas to the City Council on August 18th, but what you can expect is a return to the airport’s roots as a convenient, comfortable experience loaded with nostalgia.
“There’s no reason to make this just any other airport,” he says. “This is the doorway to a community and it should reflect the community.”
To build that experience, he outlines a series of improvements both structural and aesthetic. Chief among them are better restrooms, more concessions and expanded parking. Rodriguez is stressing practicality over full-bore expansion – while an approved Environmental Impact Report called for 3,200 new parking spaces, he plans on constructing around 1,900 and building the rest in stages as it’s needed. The plan is to cut down on cost while expanding efficiently.
“We have to fix that problem, but I can fix it in a financially feasible way that won’t hurt anybody,” he says.
But another part of the construction plan is to capitalize on Long Beach’s history as a major player in the national aircraft industry. Rodriguez wants to rebuild an intricate mosaic that once graced the halls of the main terminal, but has since been built over. Much of what once made the Long Beach Airport unique has been replaced or destroyed, and Rodriguez wants not only to bring it back, but to emphasize it.
“I didn’t come here to build an LAX,” Rodriguez says. “I came here to build a boutique airport that exceeds customer expectations.”
Will expanding and improving the Long Beach Airport be easy? No, but Rodriguez has seen tougher times. When Hurricane Katrina struck in August of 2005, more than 75% of all airport employees lost their homes, and thousands of New Orleans locals took residence in the airport terminals as the number of flights increased from 800 to 3,800 per day. For three days, Louis Armstrong International was the busiest airport in the world. To accommodate newly-homeless employees, Rodriguez oversaw the construction of 185 temporary trailers on airport property. Maybe because it was the right thing to do, or maybe because the disaster hit Rodriguez close to home, too – his first-story condo was swept away and the next 71 days were spent in a Marriot hotel (he’s now a “Diamond” member).
But there’s another lesson to be learned from the Hurricane Katrina debacle. When Rodriguez came to Louis Armstrong International in 2001, he wondered why the levees surrounding the airport – guarding runways and other critical facilities – had not been upgraded or maintained despite being in obvious need. He was told that the airport couldn’t touch them because the levees were owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, and though a plan had been produced, there was no intention of fixing the levees anytime soon. Rodriguez took the issue into his own hands, convincing the Corps to upgrade the levees using airport money since the plan already existed. They agreed, and construction was completed on August 25, 2006 – three days before Katrina struck.
Floodwaters lapped at the levees but never broke through, and while thousands were homeless and the terminal was at times chaotic, the people of New Orleans had a place to stay and aircraft could land and depart without problems (whether FEMA took advantage of that is another story). But none of it would have been possible without reinforcing the airport levee walls.
“I’d rather be lucky than smart,” says Rodriguez. “And in that case, I was.”
LGB will need him to be both. But armed with a plan and – more importantly – optimism, Mario Rodriguez enthusiastically looks to transform the Long Beach Airport. Securely fasten your seatbelts.