Iftikhar Ahmad’s tenure as chief of the R.I. Airport Corp. has had its share of turbulence, but he’s managed to maintain his bearings through it all.
Ahmad scored some early victories after making the jump from director of aviation at the international airport in New Orleans in 2016. Within a few months of Ahmad’s arrival, T.F. Green Airport had gone from offering 17 nonstop destinations to 33. Some airlines were offering international flights.
He also celebrated the completion of a long-awaited runway extension – a project that promised to draw nonstop trips to the West Coast.
Passenger traffic soared from 3.6 million in 2015 to 4.3 million in 2018. Turns out, that was the peak. The West Coast flights never materialized. Competition from nearby airports proved stiff, and the grounding of the troubled Boeing 737 MAX aircraft had some airlines withdrawing from Green.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, which left the terminal at a virtual standstill.
Ahmad insists the key to Green’s recovery is raising the airport’s profile among travelers as the convenient and affordable alternative to Boston’s airport. To that end, he led the charge to change Green’s name to one that would place the airport in the minds of travelers when they book flights. After much debate, state leaders settled on Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport.
Even before that change, there were signs of a rebound as COVID-19 cases declined. A new airline, Breeze Airways, announced it would add three routes at Green in July.
Ahmad told PBN that his goal is to have the airport reach 6 million passengers annually and make Green a “strong medium hub … to connect Rhode Island to the rest of the world in a meaningful way.”
