Midway manager gets O’hare deal

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has chosen a new manager for O’Hare Airport’s international terminal — and it’s the same joint venture that’s running Midway Airport.

Skyline Management Group has been awarded a five-year, $41 million contract to manage the $598 million international terminal and oversee a concession makeover that got under way this week.

The company was one of four to respond to the city’s “r e q u e s t - f o r - p r o p o s a l s ” (RFP). They were chosen by an Aviation Department selection committee after technical advisers graded each proposal on price, professional qualifications, minority participation, experience and approach.

Four years ago, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley signed a two-year, $21.2 million contract with Skyline Management that was supposed to tide the city over until the Southwest Side airport was privatized.

The Midway deal subsequently collapsed for lack of financing — prompting the city to extend Skyline’s Midway management contract for another two years. Emanuel plans to make a decision on whether to revive the Midway privatization deal by Dec. 31 after asking the Federal Aviation Administration for a series of extensions.

Skyline replaced a cloutheavy partnership that held the Midway contract since 2001 and included former Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Elzie Higginbottom, Daley’s chief fund-raiser in the black community.

Skyline is a joint venture of three equal partners: Chicago-based Diverse Facility Solutions; Florida-based AvAir Professional Services and Texas-based ABM Facility Services. Security and maintenance of the international terminal was first placed in the hands of a private manager 20 years ago, triggering a privatization frenzy under Daley that included a parade of other city services.

Since taking office a year ago, Emanuel has sought to rebid a host of lucrative airport concession contracts and spread the wealth beyond a clout-heavy few. Why, then, is the mayor turning the international terminal over to the same joint venture that’s already running Midway?

“The goal of an RFP is not to ‘spread around’ business. The goal is to fairly advertise the business and, through a thorough vetting process, select the best qualified company to do the job,” Aviation Department spokesman Tammy Chase said in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times.

“We’re not going to preclude doing business with someone just because they’re doing a job somewhere else.”

Skyline was chosen because they were the “best qualified to handle the management needs” of the international terminal “at an economically feasible cost” to the city, Chase said.

Skyline replaces Airport Property Management Group, a joint venture comprised of Globetrotter Engineering, Tishman Midwest Management, Lou Jones Enterprises and SPANN Tech, which has been managing the international terminal for more than a decade.