Big Salaries At DFW Airport Up For Review?

The Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport Board has been getting some bad press lately, thanks mainly to a series of exposes by KTVT-TV (Channel 11) about lavish aiport spending. But Forrest Smith, a new member of the board, thinks those reports haven’t been entirely fair. No tax monies were involved, he says, and, besides, the spending was to sell the airport to prospective customers. Nonetheless, he adds, the stories have acted as a “wakeup call.” So, what does Smith think about a Detroit Free Press report that DFW Airport employs 100 people making at least $100,000 a year? (By contrast the airport in Atlanta–which handles a third more takeoffs and landings than DFW–only has seven employees cracking the $100,000 mark, the Free Press wrote in June.) “We’ll look at things like that” during a review in December, Smith promised last night at a North Dallas reception for him thrown by the Bell Nunnally & Martin law firm, where he previously was a senior partner. “We’ll make sure we’re not doing anything that’s out of line.”