Dan Boivin, who’s been a member of the Metropolitan Airports Commission since 2002, has been named chair of the commission by Gov. Mark Dayton.
Boivin, of Minneapolis, is the executive vice president and general counsel for SeeChange Health, a health insurance and technology company.
He had been Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s representative on the MAC, currently serving as chair of its Human Resources and Affirmative Action Committee.
MAC operates the seven metro area airports.
Said Boivin: “Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport is the 12th busiest airport and one of the largest economic engines between Chicago and the West Coast and is consistently ranked by passengers as one of the best large airports in the world. I look forward to working with everyone to keep MSP and its six reliever airports one of the safest, most convenient and efficiently run airports in the world.”
Dan, MSP has fallen to 17th most active airport in the country due to the sharp reduction in passengers since the 2005 peak.
The South Metro Airport Action Council wants to work with Mr. Boivin and welcomes his statement about working with everyone. This will be refreshing if it signals more open discussions and more meaningful public hearings and if “everyone” has an opportunity to meet Commissioners occasionally on the public side or MSP security.
As an economic engine MSP has been more valuable to Delta NWA and connecting passengers and its role in Metro economic growth is quite a bit less than planned in 1998 when MSP expansion was authorized. Being one of the best large airports as “ranked by passengers” is not a useful, or even accurate, measure of MSP’s changing contributions to its home state.
{We have seen surveys conducted by airlines and airport associations without a Metro Minnesota cohort comparing airports, but the best airports were not rated highly. Boivin may be referring to peer awards by airport management associations or industry groups. To our knowledge, the last survey of local MSP users was dome years ago.)