Biography

Michael McCarter joined Ricondo & Associates, Inc. (Ricondo) in 2023. He has 11 years of diversified aviation experience ranging from airports and airlines to management consulting. Mr. McCarter currently supports multiple efforts at Ricondo ranging from new airport development studies to common use for Austin Bergstrom International Airport, the Chicago Department of Aviation, Clark County Department of Aviation, and the Houston Airports System.
For Austin Bergstrom International Airport Mr. McCarter is currently supporting electrification and vertiport studies to aid the Airport in decision making on upcoming technologies. At Chicago O’Hare Mr. McCarter is leading a common use effort which includes evaluations of operations models, funding requirements and sources, and cost recovery methods.

Prior to joining Ricondo Mr. McCarter worked for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport where he served as an airport planner with a focus on terminal and airfield planning. He worked on a diversity of projects ranging from Airport Layout Plan updates, passenger flow studies, Airplane Design Group IV improvements, and land use planning.

After having an opportunity to work on an array of different airport projects Mr. McCarter returned to school to pursue a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at TCU. After graduation Mr. McCarter joined American Airlines in their MBA rotational program. During his first rotation he worked as a Commodity Manager focusing on outsourced airport services. This included coordination with internal and external stakeholders to develop, negotiate, and implement sustainable services and material contracts for CLT & ORD and Commercial Real Estate. His second rotation took him to Alliances and Partnerships where he developed financial models to identify areas of opportunity with American’s international and domestic airline partners to increase overall value. After working on the strategic side, he transitioned over to the relationship side where he focused on Joint Business and Equity Partnerships in Asia Pacific.

Dring Covid, Mr. McCarter transitioned over to International Network Planning where he developed short-term and long-term international service plans that effectively and efficiently utilized American’s fixed assets to meet the needs of Americans customers and strategic objectives. While challenging he successfully redeveloped American’s short and mid-term long-haul network plan to Asia Pacific maximizing flexibly, potential revenue, connectivity, while minimizing cost to match passenger and cargo demand.

Once the initial shock of the pandemic had past Mr. McCarter transitioned over to his final rotation with American in Strategic Planning and Analysis. While there he worked with multiple teams across the company including Network Planning, Alliances and Partnerships, Corporate Real-estate, Airport Operations, Customer Experience and Finance to identify constraints in American’s existing infrastructure portfolio and develop creative solutions to maximize the use of existing space and/or identify projects that could maximize American’s return on investment and support the companies’ long term strategic goals.
After gaining a diversified knowledge base Mr. McCarter was hired by a management consulting firm to lead a team of management consultants based in the United States and Germany. While there he worked on an array of projects ranging from workforce transformations to operational strategy development for both Airports and Airlines across North America and the Middle East.