The Nashville Airport Authority is getting out of an unfavorable operating agreement, but it’s dysfunctional.
Nate Rau and Anita Wadhwani of The Tennessean report that under an agreement signed with the airlines in 1987 when the airport was a major hub for American Airlines, the airlines had veto power over major decisions at the airport. The airlines were also on the hook for capital improvements that ran over budget. Though the contract was set to expire next year, the airport negotiated its way out the contract a little early.
That’s the good news.
The bad news, brought to us by the same reporters, is that the airport authority, which employs over 200, has over 10% of its workforce in senior-level management and suffers from a lot of bullied employees. Management blames this, in part, on the just-mentioned control of the authority by the airlines which they were under for many years. They write:
The report — obtained by The Tennessean through a public records request — found a top-heavy organization whose senior management has for years been “paternalistic, dictatorial and centralized.” Completed in November by the firm Greeley Pond Technologies, the audit described the Airport Authority as “uncooperative internally and operating one year at a time in reactive mode, that is, more like a government bureaucracy than a proactive business enterprise.”
The Tennessean brings us the full stories about the release from the old operating agreement and about the dysfunctional culture at the Nashville Airport Authority.