Former FAA Associate Administrator of Airports Shannetta Griffin.
Former FAA Associate Administrator of Airports Shannetta Griffin has been appointed the new head of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
Griffin will hold the title of executive director and CEO of the Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA), which runs BWI. She takes over immediately.
Griffin replaces Ricky Smith, who held the top spot at BWI for the past decade before departing to become general manager of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), a post he assumed on April 2.
From 2021-25, Griffin held the FAA's lead position for overseeing regulation of U.S. airports.
Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld, to whom Griffin will report, pointed to her “leadership and commitment to promoting safety [and] fostering economic growth” in her position at the FAA.
The MAA noted in a statement that she “administered national airport safety and standards, planning, engineering, federal compliance and financial assistance programs to provide complex solutions for more than 3,300 public-use airports across the country.”
Griffin said she is “pleased to join the [MAA] team” and “will build upon relationships with our community and airline partners … to advance [BWI and the smaller, general-aviation-focused Martin State Airport as] economic gateways to our region and the world.”
Prior to her role at the FAA, Griffin was CCO and then chief development officer at John Glenn International Airport (CMH) in Columbus, Ohio. She also previously served as an executive at Indianapolis International Airport in Indiana.
MAA noted that Griffin “led the planning and execution of the [CMH’s] largest capital development program, a $2 billion project consisting of a new passenger terminal, consolidated rental car facility and hotel.”
BWI is a domestic-focused airport in which Southwest Airlines has a 70% market share. The airport has fewer than 20 international routes.
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