Reports are circulating that Atif Elkadi, the chief executive officer at Ontario International Airport since 2022, will be leaving that post no later than March.
While the airport’s chief information officer, Charles Miwa, has declined to clarify Elkadi’s status, one of its contract public spokesmen, Steve Lambert, said that reports of Elkadi’s imminent departure was merely a manifestation of Elkadi being the target of a headhunting firm that was looking to fill a top managerial position at another major airport in Southern California during an positi the has The airport
There are a multitude of indicators that Elkadi, who began at Ontario International in November 2017 as the facility’s deputy chief executive officer and stepped into the top spot at the airport four years and four months later, is on his way out as the top administrator at the airport or has already departed.
Though the airport’s official website yet identifies Elkadi as the chief executive officer with the airport and the Ontario International Airport Authority, early this week word emanating from the headquarters airport headquarters located at 1923 East Avion Avenue in Ontario was that he was on the brink of departing as chief executive officer, and that his leaving is to be finalized no later than March. There were further unverified indications that he had already left.
On Wednesday, the Sentinel made extensive efforts to contact Elkadi at the airport headquarters. It did not appear that he was present.
The Sentinel made multiple phone calls to what was formerly Elkadi’s direct phone line at the airport, the office phone for the airport administration and the airport authority office, all of which were routed to automated service desks or answering services for offices which were unrelated to the airport administration or individuals who may or may not be directly involved with the airport. The Sentinel was unable to get through to either Elkadi or his secretary. Elkad’s unavailability has has fueled speculation that his official departure has taken place or is imminent.
Elkadi has begun applying for management positions with other airports. One of these was San Diego International Airport, where Kimberly Becker is due to leave as the chief executive two months on march 18. Further information available to the Sentinel is that Elkadi was among six individuals with extensive airport administrative experience who applied for the top executive officer’s post at San Diego International Airport and was ranked sixth on the evaluation list of those competing for the job. The ultimate decision on which candidate is to be hired is to be determined on pending further interviews by members of the San Diego International Airport Authority Board of Directors of candidates deemed suitable and salary negotiations, the Sentinel was told. The board of directors has opted to limit those follow-up interviews and salary discussions to the top three-ranked applicants, meaning Elkadi is no longer in the running for the job.
In Ontario, there have been varying accounts as to whether Elkadi has acted openly or surreptitiously in attempting to make the jump from Ontario International to wherever it is he is to land next.
One version, which in much of its aspect is virtually indistinguishable from promotional materials put out by the airport is that he is doing so with the full knowledge of the five members of the Ontario International Airport Authority Board – Board President Alan Wapner, who is also a member of the Ontario City Council; Wapner’s council colleague, Ontario City Councilman Jim Bowman; San Bernardino County Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman; Ron Loveridge, who was formerly mayor of Riverside; and Judith Gouw, the former president and chief operating officer of East West Bank.
By this version of events, Elkadi is a top-drawer airport manager who can essentially write his own ticket, such that he is long past due to move upwards. It is assumed by some of those working with him that after he moves on to a larger airport on the order of San Diego International Airport, San Francisco International Airport or Detroit Metropolitan Airport, it is a virtual inevitability that he will close out his career overseeing one or the other among the world’s largest and most heavily-utilized airports, such as King Fahd International in Saudi Arabia, Dulles International in Washington, D.C., Suvarnabhumi International in Thailand, Denver International, Dubai International, Heathrow in London or New Delhi International in India. According to at least some of those affiliated with him at Ontario International, everyone in Ontario recognizes what an extraordinary talent Elkadi is, and the members of the airport authority board recognize that having Mr. Elkadi as the airport’s chief executive for nearly four years has been most fortuitous, and it is only natural that he is now progressing toward a more prestigious assignment. Wapner, they say, understands that Ontario International cannot possibly hope to keep Elkaldi much longer.
By contrast, there are reports that Elkadi has been attempting to keep his intention to leave under wraps, such that the board was to not find out about his departure until he has secured another post comparable to Ontario International chief executive officer. Accordingly, several individuals in the know say that Airport Board President Wapner’s attitude with regard to Elkadi’s move is anything but positive. Those long familiar with the political relations among Ontario’s officeholders and the halls of governance say there is no way Elkadi would openly seek employment elsewhere because if he did, Wapner would perceive any such move as a demonstration of disloyalty. According to them, the only saving grace for Elkadi that would prevent Wapner from moving to terminate Elkadi consists of information Elkadi possesses with regard to backroom maneuvering Wapner has engaged in which, if publicly revealed, would greatly complicate Wapner’s public life and continuation as a politician. Wapner, after 31 years on the city council, has announced that he intends to run against Mayor Paul Leon in the upcoming November election. Elkadi is privy, those currently and formerly involved in airport operations say, with regard to specific actions taken by the board in which relevant information was withheld from the remaining members of the board prior to votes being taken. He also has knowledge, they said, about directions to airport staff relating to airport options meant to benefit individuals or companies with personal, political or financial ties to Wapner, having himself conveyed those directions as the airport CEO at Wapner’s behest.
Elkaldi was able to land the chief executive officer positions, which is now provides him with a yearly salary of $402,495.91 and another $139,720 in perquisites and benefits for a total annual compensation of $542,215.91 in essence because he was willing to subjugate the airport’s and airport authority’s functions to assist in Wapner’s political advancement, those close to the situation in the city and at the airport relate. Elkaldi in this way substituted political pliability within the encompassment of Ontario for mastering the development of relationships with airlines.
While he has developed a virtual sixth sense with regard to recognizing what business operations articulate with and feed off the airport and whether those companies have checked in as supporters in Wapner’s electioneering efforts, Elkadi has cultivated very few relationships or lasting contacts among airline executives. In the nearly four years he has been in place as CEO, he has had only a handful of meetings with the CEO, presidents or vice presidents of airlines, almost all of which took place in formalized or ceremonial settings involving dozens of others and none that involved one-on-one, two-on-one, two-on-two or similar small-scale meetings. In the handful of circumstances where intercession with the senior staff of airlines that fly into and out of Ontario International Airport with regard to some sudden, pressing or intractable problem that had cropped up, Elkadi did not know who to call and was entirely dependent on others to initiate and handle any type of high-level intercessions, those who worked in the airport’s administrative office related. Knowledgeable sources dismiss the suggestion that Elkadi is a devoted and fully-engaged aviation enthusiast who has nurtured relationships with industry heavyweights in a way that distinguishes the world’s top airport executives from those who are less committed. They say he is an affable marketer who is focused primarily on, and has accumulated skill at, pleasing the powers that be.
More than 13 years has elapsed since the Ontario International Airport Authority was formed in anticipation of Ontario reassuming oversight of the airport from Los Angeles and its Department of Airports and the corporate entity it has for doing so, Los Angeles World Airports. Wapner, who has been the only president of the airport authority board during those 13 years, is now intent, in his run for mayor, to demonstrate that Ontario’s control of the airport has been a boon to the community. While Elkadi had value to him in assisting him in using the airport for enriching his campaign donors, the time for the airport to have been transformed into an economic engine for the betterment of the community as a whole is past due. Part of Wapner’s success in his role as airport board president has been attributable to his ability to isolate and compartmentalize function and information pertaining to the airport. That has involved hiring promotional expertise and even promoting promotional experts such as Elkadi into top executive positions to be able to propound his narrative with regard to the success of the airport. This approach has also involved keeping the public and other members of airport board in the dark as to the actual goings-on at the airport. Wapner’s current run for mayor now means that promotion of the airport and self-promotion will no longer suffice under the scrutiny of the intense campaign he must wage against an entrenched mayor who has been in office for two decades.

Representations of Elkadi’s managerial expertise as being anything beyond ordinary are generated internally at the airport and airport authority and are overblown, the current and former airport employees say, noting that Elkadi’s initial function with Ontario International Airport and aviation altogether was in marketing. Elkadi’s rise with the airport authority was based primarily upon his readiness when he was moved into the position of assistant executive officer to ensure that airport operational and managerial decisions favored a host of donors to Wapner’s political campaign, including contracts for goods and services secured by those donors as a result of no-bid or sole-source arrangements.
Wapner, who is the most prolific fundraiser among San Bernardino County’s elected municipal officials, having raised more than $3.3 million throughout his time in office and counting, finds any assistance Elkadi can lend him in terms of raising money for his upcoming mayoral campaign to be superfluous, indeed irrelevant. What he needs at this point is ultracompetence in the individual running the airport, someone who can truly transform it into the nation’s and arguably the world’s most successful subregional airport. He is said to recognize that Elkadi does not fit that bill, and he has therefore outlived his usefulness.  According to airport insiders, Elkadi recognizes he is not long for Ontario and that he will be gone as soon as Wapner finds an airport manager who is sufficiently connected to, and has an established record of successfully dealing with, the airline industry.
The strongest evidence that Elkadi is on the outs with Wapner is that he so much as considered applying for the San Diego International position. If he had succeeded in making that jump, he would give up the total compensation package of $542,215.91 he has at Ontario International for something substantially less, given that the published starting salary range for the San Diego International chief executive officer position is $250,000 to $300,000 with benefits of roughly $120,839.75 for a total annual compensation of $420,839.75, tops.
The Sentinel was told that when Elkaldi was questioned by one of the members of the San Diego International Airport Authority board members about why he was willing to leave Ontario, he said he wanted to remove himself from a very corrupt environment at Ontario International Airport.
Wapner and those with whom he is connected reject all such talk.
Officially, no one at the airport was willing to openly state that Elkadi is leaving or that there is even a hint of bad blood between him and Wapner.
Lambert in a proscribed statement, wrote, “There is no truth to the rumor that Atif is looking to leave Ontario International Airport. He and his team are focused on accomplishing the board’s vision as we celebrate 10 years of local control as one of the global aviation industry’s great success stories.”
-Mark Gutglueck