The Rhode Island Airport Corporation has hired Kevin Dillon, the former head of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire, to lead T.F. Green Airport, officials confirmed last night.

The board voted to appoint Dillon during a closed-door meeting on Dec. 19, setting in motion a lengthy contract negotiation. Dillon, 51, accepted the position yesterday, agreeing to start in Rhode Island on Feb. 18. He will be paid $220,000 a year, airport spokeswoman Patti Goldstein said.

At his current position, as one of three deputy executive directors at Orlando International Airport in Florida, Dillon was paid $195,000, $10,000 more than he earned in New Hampshire, according to Orlando airport spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell. His predecessor at Green Airport, Mark P. Brewer, earned $188,000.

“This is an exciting airport, a dynamic airport,” Dillon said. “But I think the challenge in Rhode Island is very intriguing.”

Brewer, 54, resigned Dec. 21 to assume Dillon’s former post in Manchester. Brewer had led Green Airport since 2004 as its third director.

Dillon “is highly qualified and he comes highly recommended,” Michael A. Traficante, an airport corporation board member, said.

Dillon’s decision is somewhat unusual. He left Manchester for Orlando only seven months ago, and he bought a house there after accepting the job. (He also owns a vacation home in Fort Myers, Fla.)

The Orlando airport, the largest in Florida, is far busier than Green Airport. In the last fiscal year, it moved 35.8 million passengers. The annual tally is expected to reach 53 million by 2021. Green Airport, by contrast, recorded 5.2 million passengers in 2006.

Orlando is also growing, with passenger traffic up 3 percent last year. At Green Airport, passenger traffic dropped 9 percent in 2006 and another decline was projected for last year.

Before he arrived in Manchester in 1999, Dillon helped manage significantly larger airports. He held positions at Logan International Airport, in Boston, and at The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the operator of John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

Brian O’Neill, Dillon’s interim replacement in Manchester, said Dillon sought the Orlando job because of the size of the airport. “Kevin had come from a large airport environment,” O’Neill said. “He viewed this as a great opportunity to take on new challenges at a large, growing and exciting airport.”

Yesterday, Dillon said he enjoyed working in Orlando. But he said he also missed New England, where he had lived since taking the job in Boston in 1996. In particular, he said, he regretted having moved so far from his children. One of his three daughters lives in New Hampshire, and another lives in Connecticut.

“Once you do move away, you realize the distance,” Dillon said. “That’s a pretty powerful motive.”

Dillon said he looks forward to overseeing the proposed runway expansion at Green Airport, a controversial project that has been debated for more than eight years. In New Hampshire, he completed a similar project in 2003, allowing for nonstop flights to the West Coast that are not available in Rhode Island.

The runway project, however, is not the only challenge Dillon is inheriting.

Green Airport has suffered declines in revenue that have forced unpopular increases in fees imposed on airlines and passengers. Despite those moves, the airport recorded a $300,000 revenue drop in the last fiscal year, the first annual decline this decade, according to financial audits.

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, who has feuded with the airport authority over its plans to expand the runway, said Dillon is known for having built a strong relationship with residents who live near the Manchester airport.

But the Manchester airport is run by the City of Manchester, unlike in Rhode Island, where Green Airport is overseen by an independent state agency. At Green Airport, Brewer has faced a stalwart adversary in the airport’s host city government.

“He would be going from a relationship where the city and the airport were one and the same to a relationship that is not necessarily anywhere near that,” Avedisian said.

bgedan@projo.com