Mayor’s pick for airport chief says LAX is a priority

Dodging a queue of several dozen people at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX on Thursday, Gina Marie Lindsey got an up-close-and-personal look at the challenges she will face when she takes over the city’s airport agency June 11.

As Lindsey walked briskly past busy ticket counters, airport officials striding alongside told her about the intractable issues facing LAX, including cramped, outdated terminals and a lack of parking spaces for planes.

The aging facilities are prompting some carriers to take international flights elsewhere, the officials emphasized.

“There’s no question it needs to change,” said Lindsey, whom Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced at a news conference Thursday as his pick to lead Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates LAX and facilities in Ontario, Van Nuys and Palmdale.

The city’s Airport Commission unanimously approved Lindsey’s appointment just before the mayor’s announcement.

The City Council is expected to give its required support as well; her salary will be set after she is confirmed.

Standing in front of the airport’s iconic Theme Building, Los Angeles officials praised Lindsey’s aviation industry experience, saying her achievements in expanding airports in Anchorage and Seattle will serve her well in her new post.

“It’s symbolic that we’re standing in front of the Theme Building, and it’s falling apart,” said City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, referring to the stucco that crumbled from its arches recently, forcing the closure of its restaurant. “This speaks to the job we have to do.”

Hahn recited a list of long-awaited improvements at LAX, including building new aircraft gates on the back of the Bradley Terminal, where a $725-million renovation began in February, and a new terminal behind the facility as well.

Villaraigosa zeroed in on Hahn’s earlier statement and sought to correct it.

“The metaphor is not that it’s falling apart,” he said of the distinctive Theme Building structure partially obscured by scaffolding erected for the repair work. “But that we’re putting it back together.”

In an exclusive interview after the news conference, Lindsey said her first priority would be to craft a plan to modernize aging LAX.

She said she expected her staff to give her a crash course in the 15-year history of the city’s largely stymied efforts to remake the facility.

She emphasized that she doesn’t favor any particular proposals.

In explaining why she decided to accept what is possibly the toughest job in the city, she replied: “I like to make a difference, I like to make things better.”

Lindsey said she planned to meet with community groups -- many of whom oppose expanding LAX -- and airline representatives to ask them how they would modernize the world’s fifth-busiest airport.

She also wants to contact carriers right away, in hopes of settling lawsuits challenging a controversial move by the city’s Airport Commission earlier this year to raise terminal fees.

Lindsey, 53, will replace Lydia Kennard, who resigned from her second stint as the airport agency’s executive director Jan. 31.

Lindsey, a self-described team player and people person, was chosen from a field of more than 70 candidates.

The nationally recognized aviation industry insider said that after Kennard resigned, she received several calls suggesting that she apply for the job.

As she was considering the position, Villaraigosa phoned her, and they found they had a mutual vision for the city’s airport agency.

“He’s a persuasive guy,” she said.

“This seems to be a somewhat unprecedented time of alignment,” she added, referring to the fact that the mayor, the council and various community groups agree that LAX needs to be modernized.

Currently an executive vice president at McBee Strategic Consulting in Washington, D.C., Lindsey spent 11 years as aviation director at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where she pushed through a $4.1-billion expansion plan.

She also directed Anchorage International Airport and has an extensive background in airport planning.

Lindsey received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Walla Walla College in Washington state in 1976.

Her first airport-related job, in 1981, involved managing facility development at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska. It proved to be good preparation for the Seattle-Tacoma job.

Lindsey left her $196,000 position there in 2004 to move to Washington, D.C., when her husband received a promotion at Carnival Corp.

At the time, she told local news media that she wanted to leave the area in part because of the unexpected death of her only child, Tulane University student Jeremy Houk, in 2003.

In her scant free time, she plays the piano, reads voraciously and cooks.

She said her husband will remain in Washington, D.C., but plans to visit her in Los Angeles several weekends a month.

jennifer.oldham@latimes.com