Spotlight On: Jesus Saenz, Director of Airports, San Antonio Airport System

Spotlight On: Jesus Saenz, Director of Airports, San Antonio Airport System

2023-03-22T12:08:30-04:00March 22nd, 2023|Aviation, San Antonio, Spotlight On, Transportation|

2 min read March 2023 — In an interview with Invest:, Jesus Saenz, director of airports for the San Antonio Airport System, talked about efforts to design an airport for sustainability. He also discussed his focus on creating a healthy and authentic workplace culture. “This means people will want to be part of it whether you are a stakeholder, a federal agency, or an employee,” he said.

What are some highlights or milestones for San Antonio International Airport this year? 

As the new airport director, I am involved with a new development program for the city of San Antonio to develop and grow capacity to provide opportunities for domestic and international growth. We’re so excited about our major expansion of adding a third terminal to SAT. Our Terminal Development Program is going to reimagine the passenger experience – creating a sense of place for everyone arriving in San Antonio. It will add up to 17 new gates, six of which will be able to accommodate both domestic and wide-body international flights. It will also include more than 850,000 square feet of new terminal space, which will make the new terminal larger than Terminals A and B combined. Perhaps the best part will be the landscaped, riparian paseo between the curb and the terminal that references the River Walk experience and tells the story of San Antonio’s creeks and spring-fed waterways and the outdoor courtyards within the new terminal that offer an opportunity to showcase San Antonio’s 250+ days of sunshine per year. This will impact the overall economic strength of the city. It was a lot of work by a lot of people to build this development plan. Airports are required to have a master plan developed every 10 years. When I arrived in 2020, they were in the middle of developing a 20-year plan for the existing airport with a goal of completion by 2040. I integrated several elements to the project, which is exciting because of the growth of the South Texas region. Austin is experiencing incredible growth and San Antonio is inevitably the next big city in the state of Texas. It will have enormous growth and expansion and I want to be part of that. San Antonio sits at the nucleus of everything. It has a lot of culture, charm and history. I want to help propel us to the future. 

How is sustainability integrated into your plans? 

The airport plays a major factor in that because it connects our passengers through various means. They arrive at the curb and there is a facilitation process that occurs as they make it to their gate. Now, we think of it as home to gate, or work to gate, and as we take that into consideration then technology becomes a big factor. We have a large portion of our ground equipment electrified and we are in conversations about increasing the number of electrical units in our facility. This involves coordinating with car rental facilities and the construction of additional infrastructure, which will have a big impact. We have a grant to electrify our buses that go to airport parking and rental facilities. The design standard criteria establish outdoor places and improved lighting for the long term. These are all opportunities that help to reduce the overall consumption of energy as we operate and maintain our facilities. 

How have labor shortages impacted the flight school or airport?

San Antonio has been a magnet for people who want to live and enjoy the area. We are doing better than most. We launched a new strategy with a focus on the experience that we have here in San Antonio. We want authenticity in the experience here and that is a natural magnet for people to want to be part of the workforce. It establishes who we are and who we want to be but it also shows people something they want to be a part of. The city has done a lot to manage the difficult times of COVID and there is a culture to support our employees and to show them we value and appreciate their work. This is specific to our strategy. One of our four pillars is our people; they are critical to us and we want them to be well trained and to have opportunities to develop but we also want them to be happy. The last thing is that we want to do the right thing from a regulatory standpoint. We strive for excellence, which helps our employees see the fruits of their labor. 

What state or local legislation are you watching? 

We are watching a few different grants right now that came from the infrastructure bill. We want to get as much funding as we can for future development. We are installing three new gates and we are working toward a ground-loading facility in the next couple of years, which we were recently awarded a $20 million grant for from an FAA competitive grant program, and will expand our international capacity with five new ground gates and additional routes from new and existing airlines. The FAA ReAuthorization Act also gets underway in 2023 and we are in complete alignment with ACI – the Airport Council International of North America. I am also involved with the finance committee as a liaison to the board of ACI. We are working on several initiatives that are important to how we work and which will allow us to maintain our fiscal responsibilities at these airports. Recent legislation has been important to our success and, locally, people are preparing for the next Texas legislation. They want coming bills to be pertinent to the airports and we need to work together on these future initiatives.

What is your outlook for the near term and what are your top priorities? 

As the airport director, we need to continue to focus on providing a very strong culture in the airport and how we do business. This means people will want to be part of it whether you are a stakeholder, a federal agency, or an employee. We want people to do business with us and we want them to work with us. This is important in the post-COVID rebound. The other factor is our ability to grow and expand. We have been able to bring on additional air-service development to the airport and we are starting new routes, including adding service from Spirit Airlines. We have added additional capacity and frequency both west and east, especially with Frontier Airlines. We have Southwest going internationally to Cancun and other parts of Mexico. We have several opportunities where we will target leisure and business destinations. We want to connect those routes to the city of San Antonio. 

For more information, visit:

https://flysanantonio.com/business/about-saas/administration/

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