After a 31-year career at the San Jose Mineta International Airport Aviation Director John Aitken hung up his wings in March and Mukesh “Mookie” Patel soared in to usher a new era at the airport.
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Patel comes to San Jose at a time when the airport is still struggling to get its passenger numbers back up to pre-pandemic levels. A one-year period ending in June saw 11.94 million passengers going through the San Jose airport — compared to 15.65 million passengers in the same time frame during 2018-2019.
Before coming to San Jose, Patel worked at airports in Austin, San Antonio, Denver and Kansas City. He also previously worked for Alaska Airlines and AvAirPros, where he managed the capital program budget for the international terminal building at the San Francisco International Airport.
Q: What does an aviation director do?
A: It’s a unique position within the city of San Jose. We operate under the quasi-governmental agency of the city of San Jose, but the airport operates as an enterprise fund. The enterprise fund generates it’s own revenue and supports 100% of its expenses on its own. We receive federal grants that are derived from the airline ticket tax and that funds part of our infrastructure. As the director of aviation, my role is to manage a team of industry leaders from airport operations and security to planning and development and execution of construction projects. I also have the fortune and pleasure of leading a team that does all of our marketing and communications and content creation to promote the airport as well as the core functions of the airport, which is our facilities and maintenance group. I have a small group of ninjas as I prefer to call them, which is our strategic support function of the airport, which handles HR, and IT and governmental affairs. I have a great group of leaders who are subject matter experts and my role is to get out of the way and let them do their business.
Q: How did you get into this field?
A: I was born in the UK, grew up in Leicestershire County and had a field trip as a kindergartener to a maintenance base at an airport. …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
