JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Northeast Florida Regional Airport has its fourth executive director since March 2023.
The St. Johns County Airport Authority Board chose airport operations director, Courtney Pittman, as the next interim executive director.
“I promise you under my leadership, we will not fall," Pittman said at Monday's board meeting.
“I promise you I will work every day diligently, hard, open my door to the information of others. Serve the board as I’m supposed to," Pittman said.
In March 2023, the board ousted Ed Wuellner, the airport's executive director of 27 years.
His interim replacement, another long-time airport employee, Kevin Harvey, left in July 2023, citing lack of respect and support from the board.
Harvey was replaced by Jaime Topp, who lasted almost 8 months, before resigning last week.
The board said his resignation was for personal reasons.
“We are at another meeting where we are asking who is going to run the airport tomorrow," Board Member Robert Olsen said.
The board has their interim replacement in Pittman, but not a permanent one.
“We have no crisis at the moment," board chair, Reba Ludlow, said.
Ludlow said there was no crisis at the airport at least twice during Monday's meeting.
Despite no permanent director to run the airport and bring commercial flights back to the airport.
In 2023, Wuellner had a deal to bring commercial airline, Avelo, to the airport.
But, the board rejected the deal and Avelo has since brought service to Daytona Beach.
First Coast News asked board members Dennis Clarke, Michelle Cash-Chapman, Jennifer Liotta and Ludlow for an interview, but they all declined.
Olsen left the meeting before we could ask for an interview.
“The thing that we need is to be level and keep working on the path that we’re working on,” Ludlow said.
The board said Pittman's contract will be for 6 months. At a future workshop, the board will discuss its search for a permanent executive director and discuss a possible partnership with St. Johns County.
Liotta thinks the partnership could help with the airport's staffing issues.
"Moving forward as much as we can with the interlocal agreement...we're already discussing with the county to be able to bring in some of those additional resources. So, we're not always having for whatever reason, you know, losing people and having to replace and that's bad for the airport," Liotta said.
The workshop will be June 3 at 4 p.m. at the Airport Conference Center.