Fight over flight: in the struggle for control of Charlotte's airport, aviation director Jerry Orr wound up grounded.

• Author: Rose, Julie
• Position: Cover story

The light is so dim you have to squint to see him sitting on the back row of the section reserved for city employees. Arms folded high across his chest, the airport director slouches his expression conveying a sour disposition. People who know him recognize it as his game face. Or his bored face. They look a lot alike. The City Council speeds through its consent agenda, items members have decided can be approved in a single batch. On the list is $2.6 million of spending for Charlotte Douglas International Airport: a new stretch of perimeter fencing, grading on one of its seemingly endless series of construction projects, cleaning services to keep the terrazzo flooring in high gloss...

This is why Jerry Orr has grudgingly come downtown to the Government Center this May Monday from his office above Concourse A, where the roar of departing jets punctuates his work. The money he wants to spend is airport revenue, not tax dollars, but because Charlotte Douglas is a city department, he needs the council's blessing. That grates on him, but he might not have to suffer it much longer. The General Assembly is working to wrest the airport from the city and give it to a new regional authority Should the legislation pass, he could spend money--or save it--in the manner he deems fit. "Move to approve." Council members' heads are down as they riffle through papers or check cellphones. "Second," comes another disembodied voice, nearly cutting off the first. "All in favor say ..." Eleven voices concur. Orr nods slightly, eases from his perch and slips out the side door. He's used to getting what he wants.

Charlotte Douglas has been a city department since it opened as Charlotte Municipal Airport in 1935. The aviation director reports to the city manager and council, but they had been hands-off for decades, says Stan Campbell, a council member from 1987 to 1995 and later chairman of the airport's citizen advisory committee. "The mantra for mayors and councils going back years was, 'Let the airport be run as a business and keep politics out of it.' That was the secret to it being as successful as it is."

Orr took the reins in 1989, and Charlotte Douglas became the most cost-efficient of the nation's 25 largest airports. That's why it's Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc.'s biggest hub and the eighth-busiest U.S. airport, with an economic impact on the state estimated at $12.5 billion a year. City leaders rewarded Orr with relative autonomy until 2010, when they began tightening his leash. With him in his 70s, US Airways and a group of local businessmen began to worry about how much longer he'd be at the controls. They pushed for the authority, and state lawmakers introduced legislation to create one in February.

City officials felt they had been blind-sided, but they were powerless to stop it. The Republican-controlled legislature passed a bill creating an airport authority on July 18. That same day, Orr sent a letter to the city manager stating "my employment as Executive Director of the Airport Authority commenced and my employment by the City as Aviation Director terminated upon the enactment of the Act." If he thought the matter decided--that he had won--he was wrong.

Charlotte got a temporary injunction, and Orr found himself unemployed. The city claims he resigned; his attorney says he was fired. The General Assembly was incensed. "The city opted to fire the only person who knows how to run the airport with authority, and now it's floundering," state Sen. Bob Rucho said. So they passed another bill July 26 to replace the authority with a commission. The city would continue to own the airport, but 13 appointees and an executive director would run it. A Superior Court judge later ruled the commission couldn't operate until the Federal Aviation Administration approves the move. Even if it does, the city could continue its legal battle. Either way, Orr's future, like that of the airport he made, is up in the air.

Our growth for 35 years has been like that," he says, making what seems to be his favorite gesture. Orr doesn't talk much with his hands--or words, for that matter--but his arm shoots up on a diagonal, as if his hand is an airplane climbing, when discussing the airport's growth or the savings it delivers to airlines. US Airways Vice President Michael Minerva chuckles at the number of times he has seen it. "Jerry has really a unique vision for how the airport should run, and that vision is also a very large factor in CLT's...