John Ackerman is in over his head.
Ackerman is CEO of Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA). He was hired in 2023 from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, where he served as executive vice president of Global Strategy and Development and was responsible for marketing and airport expansion.
In his time spent at LAX, that expertise has not been put to good use. LAX has experienced a dramatic decrease in passenger growth — 2024 numbers were 13% lower than pre-COVID 2019 levels. Most of the declines took place in the second half of 2024, when Ackerman was firmly settled. As a result, LAX had the unwanted distinction of moving from the second-highest passenger airport in the U.S. to the fifth in 2024. Meanwhile, other local airports, Ontario International and Long Beach, had double-digit growth in 2024, and Burbank posted its highest passenger levels ever.
Not everything is down at LAX, though. Ackerman just got a huge raise — $250,000 after 16 months. Effective July 1, Ackerman will be paid a whopping $750,000. He is failing up!
And he’s fast at increasing some things, like establishing a managerial entourage. Ackerman hired over 20 new, highly paid executives to put between him and the little people at the airport — like the Chief of Police of LAXPD.
With the 2028 Olympics and 2026 FIFA World Cup coming to the city of Los Angeles and the dangerous state of world affairs, one might surmise that Ackerman is focusing on policing and safety, knowing that passenger levels will rise with the events and the attention of the entire world will be on LAX shortly. Wrong! LAXPD sworn officer levels are at their lowest in 20 years under Ackerman. Ackerman pulled out his “marketing budget” and matching incentives PowerPoint that he learned at DFW to fill empty LAXPD policing ranks. He recently lamented that he is trying to fill police vacancies, but those creative ideas are not working.
No worries, though — while he got his $250,000 raise after 16 months of failure and added a bunch of highly paid deputy executive directors that never existed before him, many of the LAXPD officers are still waiting for pay owed to them since his arrival. That should sell the job and bring plenty of police recruits into an understaffed and underappreciated airport police department!
“My officers are running out of patience, and so am I,” said LAAPOA President Marshall McClain. “I am not sure where the priorities are at LAX, but they are not with safety and policing. Ackerman’s mindset is not one of a CEO of a major airport. Perhaps he is still stuck in executive VP mode, because the lack of understanding of what it takes to keep a massive airport environment like LAX safe is showing. Our officers are stress-tested and have experienced high-intensity situations. No book or academic briefing is a better qualifier. Unlike his predecessors, CEO Ackerman has never met with LAAPOA. Maybe that will tell you why LAXPD is in disarray. His dress rehearsal is our real-time life-and-death decision. We cannot get it wrong. We are hoping he gets it right before his decisions make us get it wrong. You heard it here first. We are sending up the flares.”