Panel Picks New Chief of Airport Agency

The Los Angeles Airport Commission voted unanimously Thursday to appoint Kim Day, an architect with extensive experience in aviation design, as executive director of the city’s airport agency.

Day, 50, has been with Los Angeles World Airports since 1999 and was named interim executive director by Mayor James K. Hahn last December after Lydia Kennard resigned.

Day oversees the city’s four airports: Los Angeles International and those in Van Nuys, Ontario and Palmdale.

“We’re on a whole different page of history here in Los Angeles, and I’m sure you’re the right person to guide us,” airport Commissioner Miguel Contreras told Day after the vote.

The mayor and the City Council must confirm the appointment, but Hahn lauded the commission’s decision. “Ms. Day has demonstrated exceptional leadership throughout her five-year tenure at LAWA and particularly as interim executive director,” he said in a statement.

Day would face numerous challenges in her new role, including: complying with ever-changing federal security requirements, coping with the airline industry’s financial difficulties, and moving forward with modernization plans at the city’s four airports.

Her biggest job would be managing the $11-billion makeover for LAX that the City Council on Wednesday signed off on. Under that plan, Day would oversee an ambitious project to redo runways, demolish and build terminals, and construct such major new facilities as a consolidated rental car center.

Day, who makes $230,491 a year, spent the last three weeks preparing for and testifying at council committee hearings on the plan and making presentations to the full council this week.

Two major accomplishments in as many days left Day tired but ready to get to work. “I’m elated,” she said in an interview after the commission meeting. “I feel like I just won a marathon.”

The city conducted a nationwide search to fill the post and considered more than 100 candidates. Four finalists were interviewed last week by a panel of city and airport officials.