The man who piloted Ottawa’s airport through the most turbulent times in its history is stepping down.
Ottawa International Airport Authority president and CEO Mark Laroche is retiring after more than a decade in the role, he announced Wednesday during the organization’s annual public meeting.
“It was a very difficult decision, but I felt the timing was right as we are on the cusp of pursuing another major terminal expansion,” said Laroche, who took the reins as CEO in 2013. “The airport is in excellent shape.”
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The change at the top comes as YOW, as the airport is known, continues to add new routes and gain traffic after bottoming out during the COVID-19 crisis.
Buoyed by Porter Airlines’ decision to make YOW a regional hub and the addition of Air France’s direct flights to Paris, the airport welcomed more than four million passengers in 2023, a 37 per cent increase from the previous year.
And after racking up more than $100 million in debt during the pandemic, YOW finished last year $10.8 million in the black.
“We are recovered,” Laroche told the audience at the Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa Airport.
Laroche used the occasion to tout initiatives such as the recent opening of new retail and food offerings, including the new Canal Market Hall, which features local favourites such as La Bottega and Bridgehead Coffee, as well as the construction of the Alt airport hotel, which is now underway and is expected to be completed next summer.
Laroche thanked his airport colleagues as well as government officials and other partners for their support over the years. He said the proudest accomplishment of his 11-year tenure was successfully lobbying to have the Trillium light-rail line extended to the airport and securing financing for the station, which is slated to open in the coming months.
“LRT, when it was first planned, was passing by the airport,” Laroche explained, later telling OBJ that light rail will have a “generational” impact on passengers travelling to and from the terminal.
“It will pay dividends in time,” he added.
As the scale continues “to tip in favour of leisure travel over business travel,” Laroche said the airport is studying how that will affect future growth at YOW.
“We are exploring everything from optimizing existing space and new technology, to the need for additional capacity and a significant expansion program,” he said.
Deep local roots
Laroche, who has called the National Capital Region home for most of the past 55 years, earned a civil engineering degree from Royal Military College in 1981. He eventually became a city manager in the Montreal area before serving as chief administrative officer for the City of Gatineau from 2001-07.
Laroche then spent nearly six years as head of the Canada Lands Company, a Crown corporation that buys and develops federal properties, commuting between his home in the Ottawa region and the firm’s head office in Toronto.
But his heart remained in the nation’s capital. When an executive search firm approached him to gauge his interest in the top job at his hometown airport, he jumped at the opportunity.
“This is my community,” he said, explaining his decision to join YOW. “I had to learn very quickly, how does an airport really run?”
Laroche soon realized that running the terminal wasn’t that much different than being the top bureaucrat of a city or the boss of a Crown corporation.
“You’re managing people and you’re managing infrastructure and assets,” he said. “There’s a lot of commonality, especially at the CEO level. To manage an airport, you don’t have to be a pilot.”
Laroche’s colleagues praised his leadership skills and his persistence in pushing for projects such as the light-rail station and Porter Airlines’ new aircraft maintenance hub, which is bringing hundreds of jobs to YOW.
“It’s worked,” said Krista Kealey, the airport authority’s vice-president of communications and public consultation since 2002. “He’s really set the airport on a course for success … and to be a bigger player on the airport stage.”
Ottawa Tourism president and CEO Michael Crockatt credited Laroche for keeping a steady hand on the tiller during the COVID crisis and helping secure new routes such as Air France’s daily flights to Paris as travel began to rebound.
“He was probably the perfect person to lead the airport in a stable way through a challenge like the pandemic,” Crockatt said. “The airport authority was in really good shape from a financial and operational standpoint to make it through that, and now you can see the results.”
Laroche said the airport authority’s board of directors has struck a committee to lead the search for a new CEO, a process that’s expected to take at least several months.
Once his successor is in place, the avid outdoorsman said he plans to spend more time pursuing passions such as cycling, skiing and hiking.
“I’m going to try to enjoy retirement,” Laroche said. “If I don’t like it, I’ll do something else, but I kind of think I’m going to like it.”
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