Vicki Braunagel has been an airport junkie for years, even arranging stopovers when she travels so she can tour other airports.
When she retires as co-manager of aviation at Denver International Airport on March 31, she will end a nearly three-year run in that position and 16 years with Denver’s airport system.
Braunagel, 58, recently sat down with The Post to discuss what she’s most proud of, what’s in store for DIA and what she plans to do after her scheduled departure.
Q: Do you view the airport differently when you travel?
A: Absolutely. When I fly, I’m on a busman’s holiday. So for example, we’re going to fly to Boston to visit our kids, but I want to change planes in Minneapolis because I want to look at their new concessions. When I walk through any terminal, I go, “Oh, look. That’s where they put their rental cars. That makes sense. Let me think about that.”
Q: Are there things you have seen at other airports you wish DIA had?
A: Some airports are now beginning to bring in high-end retail, and I think we’ll move to that. That’s something I think this community can support. Someday I think it will make sense for us to have a consolidated rental-car facility and some kind of an automated transit to it.
Q: What do you feel are your biggest accomplishments?
A: I am truly proud of being part of the team that built the airport. I think we took virgin ground and built this really beautiful and functional facility. Then we spent the next 10 years making sure that it was running well, was efficient and was solidifying its financial base.
Q: What haven’t you gotten done?
A: We are basically a for-profit operation, but there are restrictions and constraints that are imposed on any government entity that flow from the use of tax dollars. But the airport doesn’t take any tax dollars. We generate tax dollars.
There are things that come from this other set of government rules that make it hard to be a really nimble, flexible business operation. I’d like to have taken some of that out of the structure.
Q: Is there any progress on negotiations with Frontier (about adding more gates)?
A: We obviously have ongoing discussions with them. For the past four years, between 9/11 and United’s bankruptcy, we’ve been pretty conservative about how we spend our dollars.
The industry has not yet shaken out what it’s going to look like, and perhaps won’t for a number of years. But I see that we’ve begun to move from that, particularly as United comes out of bankruptcy. If growth is going to be coming – and I think it is – what are all of the systems that need to be addressed? Gates are just one component of that.
Q: What about the terminal hotel?
A: I hope we have a terminal hotel someday before I die. I won’t be here, but I’ll come back for the opening. I’ll come tottering in in my wheelchair.
Q: Do you see more international flights happening soon?
A: Yes, I just don’t know when. We’re looking at everything we can do. We’d love Munich, and we’d love Asia, Japan, China. But no, no announcements.
Q: What do you plan to do in retirement?
A: This fall, my husband and I plan to start at the Canadian border and follow the fall along the East Coast. We’re also going to take a trip to Machu Picchu. I have a list of all the things I want to do, from gardening to taking piano to spending more time with my kids. And I have a stack of books I’m waiting to read.
Q: What’s on the top of your stack of books?
A: The most recent one is a book called “The Planets.” I’d like to read “Theodore Rex,” Teddy Roosevelt’s autobiography.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
