Welcome toWilliam P. Hobby Airport

Houston’s airport director is rewriting leadership one step at a time.Airports are often run from boardrooms, not baggage claims. But in Houston, Director of Aviation Jim Szczesniak prefers a different vantage point. Several times a week, he trades conference calls for concourses, walking the terminals of George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to talk directly with passengers and employees. It’s leadership in motion—face-to-face, unscripted and designed to catch problems before they become headlines.“It’s about staying connected to the operation and to the people,” Szczesniak said. “Houston Airports welcomed a whopping 63.1 million passengers in 2024. We inject $40.6 billion into the region’s economy, and our airports are ranked among the best in the world.”The ritual isn’t new. “This approach started while leading the team at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Alaska,” he said. “I made walking the terminals to engage with staff a priority then, and I’ve carried it with me to Houston. It’s important to be out in the field when leading a large, complex operation like this with more than 1,200 employees.”He times the walks deliberately. “I typically walk HOU and IAH on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons,” Szczesniak said. “Those are busy travel periods, and the walks give me a solid bookend to the week. I’ve blocked time on my calendar to make sure it happens. It helps me stay connected to airport operations, spot issues early and thank employees for a job well done.”The feedback has been immediate and personal. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, especially from employees,” he said. “Whether it’s terminal staff, maintenance crews or airfield operations, people appreciate that leadership is present and listening.”On Valentine's Day, Szczesaniak shared chocolates with passengers. In December 2025, he joined a high school choir as they serenaded passengers with holiday carols.In 2024, Houston Airports rolled out bright orange polo shirts for all employees who interact with passengers. “Orange means we can help,” Szczesniak said. “When I wear our signature orange polo, passengers often stop me with questions or concerns. That’s valuable. It helps me understand where the pain points are so I can work with the team to remove them.”Most staff recognize him, but passengers rarely do. “I’ve had travelers ask who I am, and when I say, ‘I’m Jim Szczesniak, Houston Airports Director,’ they’re surprised,” he said. “They don’t expect to see it in the fourth-largest city in the U.S., but that’s the point. I want people to see leadership out in the terminal, answering questions, offering help and being part of the experience—that’s Texas hospitality.”The greatest value, Szczesniak says, comes from hearing repeated concerns. “The biggest value is hearing directly from passengers about what’s not working,” he said. “As airport professionals, we don’t always see the friction points passengers experience. But when you get asked the same question over and over, that’s a signal that something needs fixing. These terminal walks help me identify those blind spots and work with the team to find solutions.”His message to other airport directors is simple: get out from behind the desk. “You’re doing it wrong if you’re not out in the terminal regularly,” he said. “You can’t lead an airport from behind a desk. Being out in the field—talking with travelers, listening to staff—that’s how you know what kind of experience you’re actually delivering. It’s how you spot problems early and build a strong, motivated team. Face-to-face interaction is critical if you’re serious about running a world-class airport.”For Szczesniak, the orange shirt isn’t a uniform. It’s a statement: that billion-dollar airports are built not just on concrete and steel, but on conversations in crowded terminals and trust earned one question at a time.

Texas lost one of its most recognizable artistic voices with the passing of David Adickes, the modernist sculptor and painter behind some of the state’s most colossal and enduring landmarks. He was 98.Adickes, a native of Texas, was born in Huntsville in 1927. According to his website, he was best known for his towering presidential busts and the 67-foot Sam Houston statue, A Tribute to Courage, that continues to greet drivers along Interstate 45 in Huntsville. In Houston, his work lives on in concrete and steel—and in the memories of millions of travelers who pass through the city’s airports.A statue of George H.W. Bush has stood inside Terminal C at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) for more than two decades. Earlier this year, the beloved “We Love Houston” sculpture found a new home at William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), where it now welcomes passengers with a burst of color and civic pride. Just outside IAH, his monument to President John F. Kennedy marks a symbolic threshold between history and flight.“David Adickes made Houston feel bigger—literally and culturally,” said Alton DuLaney, chief curator of cultural affairs for the City of Houston. “His work is more than monumental. It’s connective. You see it on the side of the freeway or in an airport terminal, and it instantly grounds you in place, in story and in scale. His legacy is cemented—quite literally—into the city’s identity.”Photo of DuLaney and AdickesAdickes once said he wanted his work to outlast him. In Houston, it already has.

For most travelers, the airport experience begins in a car, often in traffic, inching toward a terminal under stress and a deadline. In Houston, that narrative quietly changed this summer.Without the fanfare of a ribbon-cutting or a press conference, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) pulled off a rare feat in modern airport management: a 75% drop in curbside congestion from April to June when compared to the same time last year. It wasn’t magic. It was infrastructure. Houston Airports opened permanent Terminal E Departures and Arrivals curbs in late 2024.Freshly painted columns and 4,500 square feet of anti-slip epoxy along the Departures Curb now welcome passengers to Terminal A, Bush Airport's oldest terminal. A vestibule with two rows of sliding glass doors insulates the Terminal A Ticketing Lobby and provides airport guests another layer of safety and protection.These subtle, smart improvements are not limited to Bush Airport. At William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), a new ride share pickup area within Zone 5 now gives Uber and Lyft passengers a more intuitive, shaded, organized space. The areas also feature comfortable benches.At the same time, Houston Airports completed the full rollout of a new cashless parking system at IAH’s A/B Garage, marking the final milestone in a system-wide upgrade across all Houston Airports parking facilities at IAH and HOU. The new system simplifies the parking experience with faster entry and exit and more digital payment options.The public noticed. In April, satisfaction with the A/B Garage hit a low of -20 as exit lanes were temporarily closed while the technology was installed. Two months later, in June, satisfaction rates jumped to +47, a 67-point upswing in traveler sentiment.Behind the scenes, 36 new ecopark shuttles were deployed, and rental car shuttle operations were restructured to match peak passenger times. RELATED | More rides, better experience: Upgrades to shuttle service and infrastructure at IAHThese changes reflect a larger philosophy for Houston Airports: that world-class infrastructure isn’t always shiny or loud. Sometimes it’s the paint on a column, the texture of the pavement or a sign that finally points to the right place.