Christina Cassotis was born into aviation, with a father who served as a Marine fighter pilot flying Douglas A4s in Vietnam and then came home to fly for Pan Am Airlines.
“I lived a bizarre life for someone in a small New Hampshire town,” she says. “He’d come home for 5-day layovers” from far-flung destinations in Africa and Europe. “He spent his time in cafes learning the local cuisine, and then would come home and cook it,” she says.
But when the family went on vacations, “he didn’t want to fly.” After the one time they did, to London, “I said, I want to be in the aviation industry.”
But she knew it wouldn’t be as a pilot or a flight attendant. She ended up at Boston Logan International Airport, where she worked with a former ENR Newsmaker, Sam Sleiman. “I learned what it takes to run an airport, what’s at stake every day,” she says.
After a stint as an aviation consultant, a headhunter called her in 2014 about taking the CEO reins at Pittsburgh International Airport, which, after the pullout of US Airways ten years earlier, was struggling and needed to pivot from being a hub airport to an origin-and-destination airport.
Cassotis has often told the story about originally thinking she would only stay there three years. Over a decade later, she is still there, leading the $1.7-billion modernization effort that is wrapping up. The crown jewel is an 811,000-sq-ft new terminal complete with such features as universal-access amenities, a new pedestrian bridge, architectural features evoking hills and the night sky, a 12-lane security checkpoint, and a pilot program where a robotic arm handles baggage.
A joint venture of PJ Dick and AECOM Hunt, along with Jacobs Solutions, served as construction manager, with Gensler, HDR and luis vidal + architects leading design. Contractor Fay, a subsidiary of S&B USA Construction, built the roads and bridges, while Mascaro Construction built the terminal foundation and slab-on-grade work, the structural steel and concrete decks package for the new parking garage and the terminal’s architectural enclosure.
Rycon Construction coordinated with other contractors on the baggage handling expansion and worked with Viking Erectors on the multimodal complex. Other major players include Turner Construction, MBI International, Ricondo, Navarro & Wright, Connico and Buro Happold.
“Christina brought to realization a project that was practical, highly functional and improved day-to-day operations of the airport,” says Carolyn Sponza, a principal with Gensler. “She thought bigger about facility changes to achieve true modernization. And she [understood] the place that transportation facilities occupy in reinforcing civic identity. Her laser focus on creating something beautiful at every level … is a great reminder that there is both an art and a science to major infrastructure improvements.”
Cassotis launched initiatives including xBridge, which allows technology companies to test their products at the airport; Neighborhood 91, a first-of-its-kind dedicated campus for additive manufacturing companies; the world’s first major airport microgrid system; and a plan to develop a sustainable on-airport fuels farm.
The airport team went above and beyond in outreach to small and disadvantaged contractors (ENR.com 4/15/22), and the community. Pittsburgh residents were invited to participate in “dress rehearsals” for the new terminal, and their feedback was incorporated before the opening.
With the terminal open, the next goal is to “settle in,” she says. “Now we have to tweak, iterate and make sure we’re constantly improving.” And the third goal is to keep pursuing innovation. “A massive digital transformation is taking place,” she says. “Huge amounts of data are coming out, like from the baggage system. How do we align leadership and frontline workers to make decisions around operations?”