This Week’s Video: How the Creation of the Airport Authority Paid Off

Part 2 of an occasional series on how a change in governance 25 years ago transformed PIT

By Blue Sky Staff

Published December 2, 2024

Read Time: 2 mins

At the end of 1999, Republican and Democratic politicians pinned their hopes for the future on a bold experiment to create the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

Looking back on the 25 years since, there is little doubt that their vision paid off.

Bob Cranmer, the Republican Allegheny County Commissioner who worked with his Democratic colleague Mike Dawida to create the ACAA, knows to this day that it was necessary to lay the groundwork for “a good, well-run airport.”

“I don’t think we’d have the innovation or the progress we made” without the authority model, agreed Jeffrey Letwin, the lawyer hired to shepherd the creation of the ACAA who now serves as its solicitor.

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