At Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), one of the best vantage points to see planes low in the sky is the playground at the employee childcare center.
The teachers say it never gets old for the kids.
When asked if they liked planes, the children responded in a cacophony of squeals and plane noises.
“Because they have big wings! Because they fly! Because I like to travel,” they said.
Gavin Kearns, 3, said his mom keeps the planes safe. Angela Kearns has worked for TSA for the last 15 years. When she first came off maternity leave with Gavin, their only childcare option was far from both their home and the airport.
“I started at 4 a.m.,” she said, “so it made it an extremely long day.”
Her husband handled drop-off, and she picked him up. When her shifts changed, she considered letting her husband do both drop-off and pick-up, but she was missing out on time with Gavin.
Then the Allegheny Airport Authority opened the on-site childcare center in a decommissioned terminal and limited access to airport employees only; the Kearns family jumped at the opportunity.
“Making sure your child is being taken care of properly is a big to-do, especially as a first-time parent, and that safety and security,” Kearns said — it was peace of mind she didn’t have with her first daycare.
“As a working mom of soon-to-be-two, it definitely puts your mind at ease,” said TSA Agent Angela Kearns about her son Gavin being enrolled at PIT’s La Petite Academy.
Though still rare, airport employee childcare centers are a growing trend in the United States.
In 1993, a facility opened for workers at San Francisco International Airport; in 1998, a childcare center opened at LAX; in Phoenix, Arizona, the city funds an airport worker childcare scholarship, while a permanent location and program is built; and, in Denver, the airport is opening a backup childcare center for employees while exploring a larger, on-site facility to serve its roughly 40,000 workers.
Some have nontraditional hours to fit their employees’ nontraditional schedules. At SFO, the daycare is open on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
It’s part of how these airports are addressing labor shortages, which currently trouble the aviation industry in all roles, from retail to pilots, and TSA — especially amidst the past year’s government shutdowns.
“Workforce is a really big issue and having people choose to work out here, whether for us as the airport authority or for Chick-fil-A,” said Christina Cassotis, CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority.
“If you want to work at Chick-fil-A, why would you want to work at the airport versus Robinson? You’ve got to go through a badging process. You’ve got to go through security to get to work every day. The walk is probably longer from parking to your place of employment,” she said.
This is a special challenge in Pittsburgh, Cassotis said, where there are 17 miles between the airport and the city center.
And in other places, too. As part of Denver’s evaluation for their potential, permanent childcare addition, their findings “indicate that the area surrounding the airport is a ‘childcare desert,’ meaning there are not enough childcare resources available to meet community needs,” said Ashley Forest, a representative for the airport.
“We were really looking at childcare as well as transportation as well-documented issues around workforce issues,” Cassotis said, referencing PIT tenants’ 5,000 employees.
So they crafted the plan to open the childcare center, something that was personally important to Cassotis, as a working mother herself. She remembers some members of her team were skeptical about undertaking the initiative.
“I thought, well, isn’t it lucky that you’ve never had to struggle with that question?” Cassotis said. She remembers, as a mother, that being late to pick up her child at daycare cost $1 for every minute she was tardy.
She said they decided to set the rate 10% lower than the market rate and make accepting children receiving state child care aid a priority.
They had to figure out site selection, operators and funding. Building within the old terminal was the most cost-effective. And while federal tax credits do exist for employers looking to invest in their employees’ childcare (tax credits expanded in 2026 now allow employers to claim 40% of childcare expenses like building or operating a childcare facility), a representative from PIT said that Allegheny County Airport Authority does not utilize these credits.
The authority sought support and were ultimately gifted more than $700,000 by private foundations, including the Hillman Foundation, the Benedum Foundation, and Trying Together.
For an operator, they chose Learning Care — a company that has run the childcare center at LAX since 2022. Ian Fleming, a representative from Learning Care, said a spectrum of industries inquire about workforce-provided childcare, and that for irregular shift work it serves workers’ unique schedules.
Learning Care also operates the employer childcare at Dick’s Sporting Goods headquarters in Findlay Township — less than a 5-mile drive from the airport. When their facility ran out of room, the airport facility was able to provide back-up accommodations for Dick’s employees.
Even so, the center is not yet at capacity, and this summer it opened its doors to the public.
Employees at PIT say the facility creates a new sense of community.
“It’s nice because I see the parents dropping their kids off,” said Kearns, “Then I also see them at work, whether it’s we’re in the same meetings. If it’s an airport meeting or just in passing or when they come through security. It’s nice to see a familiar face.”
Kearns has baby number two on the way and right away, she said, she reserved his spot next to his big brother.
“We’re a team, and teammates take care of each other,” Cassotis said. “This is one of the ways that we can do that, and I think others can do it, too. And I don’t think there’s ever a time that a big organization or an airport wouldn’t need something like this.”