Fort Smith Regional Airport director resigns

Fort Smith Regional Airport Director Michael Griffin resigned Tuesday (April 22). His resignation was announced following a more than 90 minute Airport Commission executive session. Griffin, director since 2017, was not in attendance at Tuesday’s regular commission meeting.

“Michael Griffin has offered his resignation as the director of the airport, not as any result of any misconduct or wrongdoing. His service and time at the Fort Smith airport is much appreciated,” Airport Commission Chair Eric Pendergrass announced after the commission returned from executive session.

Griffin has been with the airport for 18 years.

“I think that Director Griffin was at a point in his life where he was ready to do something different,” Pendergrass said after the meeting when asked about the resignation.

Lindsay Conley, airport director of finance and administration, and Andrew Meyer, airport director of operations, were named by the commission as co-interim directors. The commission also voted unanimously to hire a consultant to help Conley and Meyer with interim management.

The commission also voted to begin the process to search for a new director. Commissioner Dr. Justin Voris volunteered to be the lead commissioner with that effort. Pendergrass said he hoped to have a new director hired within 6 months. Griffin’s base annual salary was $165,000.

Griffin was part of the community leadership to help recruit the foreign pilot training mission to the Ebbing Air National Guard Base located at the airport. He also worked with local, state, federal, and military officials on establishing the new base in Fort Smith.

Ebbing, home to the 188th Wing in Fort Smith and co-located with the Fort Smith Regional Airport, was selected in March 2023 by the U.S. Air Force to be the long-term pilot training center supporting F-16 and F-35 fighter planes purchased by Singapore, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Finland, and other countries participating in the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The cost to build the center, which has begun, is estimated as high as $1.2 billion.

The airport has also struggled to boost enplanements – people getting on commercial air carriers at the airport – in recent years. Fort Smith enplanements were on a growth trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 95,670 in 2019. Enplanements totaled 61,409 in 2024. The last time enplanements topped 100,000 was in 2005 with 102,607. The enplanement record is 112,782 and was set in 1975.

American Airlines had four to five flights a day in 2021 but has reduced its schedule to three flights a day. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines stopped its direct service to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in July 2020.