WARWICK — These are choppy waters, and Kevin Dillon could have been forgiven for dipping in one toe at a time. After all, he does not even take office for another month.

But less than 48 hours after being named the next director of T.F. Green Airport, Dillon had already addressed the state’s most controversial transportation quagmire: the proposed expansion of the airport’s main runway.

In an interview at the end of an eight-hour visit last Wednesday, Dillon pledged to push for the speedy lengthening of the runway — a goal that eluded his predecessor, Mark P. Brewer, and laid waste to relations with the airport’s neighbors.

That Dillon would support the runway project, first proposed more than eight years ago, is not surprising. His completion of a similar expansion at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire in 2003 was considered a prized credential by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, the independent agency that runs Green Airport.

The board unanimously appointed Dillon on Dec. 19, passing over five other finalists also recommended by the board’s search committee. It then agreed to a $220,000 annual salary, 17 percent more than Brewer earned.

If board members had the runway on their mind, it seems, so far, they got what they were looking for.

Dillon, one of three deputy executive directors at Orlando International Airport in Florida, said he does not plan to patiently await the findings of a Federal Aviation Administration study of the two expansion options.

Under Brewer’s administration, the FAA said it would not announce its recommendations for another two years. That timeline, Dillon said, is now subject to his pestering and prodding.

“You need to push,” he said. “My focus coming through the door is to understand where the FAA is on this and to get them to move ahead as quickly as possible. I want it to become an FAA priority.

“You always need to have someone to shepherd the process through,” Dillon said. “It’s important to the airport, to the airlines and to the community. I want to bring a conclusion to this process.”

In Manchester, Dillon oversaw the expansion to a 9,250-foot runway. The 7,166-foot runway at Green Airport doesn’t allow planes large enough for nonstop flights to California or European cities east of London.

Brewer’s departure was widely attributed, at least in part, to the strain of managing relations with airport foes, principally environmentalists, hostile property owners and the politicians who represent them.

However, Dillon insists that despite his support for Green’s runway project, he will maintain strong ties to the airport’s host city. Until he sells his house in Orlando, he said, he might even rent an apartment in Warwick.

“How you build trust is, you’re truthful. I’m not going to come in here and say it’s not a priority of mine to grow the airport,” Dillon said. “I’m not saying that three years from now everyone is going to be saying Kevin Dillon is the best thing since sliced bread. But most people just want to have an understanding of what’s happening.”

Although the Manchester airport is owned by the City of Manchester, Dillon said he faced challenges from airport critics in and out of government during his eights years there. Two Manchester aldermen, for example, represent districts that include the airport and residents who at times have criticized it.

Two thirds of the airport property, moreover, lies across the town of Londonderry line. That requires the Manchester airport director to deal with residents who, like their Warwick counterparts, wield little authority over a uniquely nettlesome neighbor. Expanding the Manchester runway, Dillon said, meant uprooting families from their homes, as would be required in Warwick.

Logan International Airport in Boston, where Dillon served as director of aviation operations, and LaGuardia Airport in New York, where he was acting general manager, both border neighborhoods. “I’m certainly no stranger to community issues,” he said.

Still, managing local demands here might prove more complicated. Warwick has more than three times Londonderry’s population, and the neighborhood abutting T.F. Green is densely settled and home to many skilled airport adversaries.

Warwick’s mayor, Scott Avedisian, did not meet with Dillon before the board hired him, an opportunity available in 2001 before former Green Airport director Michael G. Cheston’s appointment. Nevertheless, Avedisian spoke approvingly of Dillon in a statement last week, praising his “ability to work towards consensus.”

That tone has changed. Dillon again failed to meet with Avedisian during last week’s visit to Rhode Island, despite finding time to host a reporter from a city newspaper. The story in the Warwick Beacon last Thursday, in which Dillon calls the expanded runway “necessary,” further antagonized Avedisian.

“Before coming in and saying this is his top priority, it would have been nice to hear it from him directly,” said Avedisian, who criticized Dillon’s itinerary as “frustrating and insulting.”

Dillon did not leave the airport during his visit last week, spending most of his time with airport staff. Bruce Wilde, the airport corporation’s chief human resources officer, and Peter A. Frazier, its top lawyer and interim director, met Dillon at the gate when his 12:15 p.m. Southwest flight from Orlando landed.

At 12:30 p.m., Dillon had lunch with his future senior staff, including Frazier and Wilde, as well as Brian C. Schattle, the airport’s chief financial officer; Ann L. Clarke, the senior vice president of planning; Doug Dansereau, chief auditor; and Sharon Traficante, manager executive of support services, according to airport spokeswoman Rebecca M. Pazienza.

Dillon spoke with airport communications staff at 2 p.m., and for the next three hours, beginning at 2:30 p.m., he sat in a leather swivel chair as board members held their monthly meetings. His return flight took off at 8:20 p.m.

Still, Avedisian said, Dillon should have penciled in time for local policymakers. “That’s the way to start an actual relationship,” Avedisian said. “Those people who have felt they would run roughshod over the city’s concerns have been unsuccessful so far. I would hope that he wouldn’t begin his tenure here with that attitude.”

Relations with the city will not be Dillon’s only headache. He is inheriting two major projects, an $83.5-million renovation of the terminal and the construction of a long-delayed, $242-million transportation hub that will give travelers from Boston rail access to Green Airport.

At the same time, Green Airport is grappling with steep declines in passenger traffic that have eroded its revenue and forced unpopular increases in fees imposed on passengers and airlines.

Passenger traffic in Rhode Island dropped 9 percent in 2006 and another 3.5 percent last year, as airlines discontinued flights or switched to smaller jets. Airport officials released the December tally — a 5.6-percent drop from 2006 — at Dillon’s first board meeting.

Although the fee hikes have compensated for some of those loses, total revenue dropped in the last fiscal year, the first annual decline this decade.

Dillon is moving into the terminal’s third-floor, corner office at a time when jet fuel prices, having more than doubled since 2003, are forcing air carriers to slow their growth. Last month, Southwest Airlines, the dominant airline at Green Airport, and Delta Airlines, its fourth-most active carrier, announced plans to reduce domestic service.

In the coming weeks, most major carriers are expected to report losses for the fourth quarter of last year. An economic slowdown, resulting in decreased business and leisure travel, will not help.

Dillon says he is not panicking. The declines in traffic at Green Airport are “cyclical,” he said. In the next few years, Logan, where Dillon worked from 1996 to 1999, will be overwhelmed and start directing traffic to Rhode Island, as it did before Sept. 11, 2001, he said.

“Invariably,” Dillon said, “that demand is going to return.”

The FAA is projecting significant growth in New England air traffic, the primary reason it has backed Rhode Island’s runway expansion project.

In the meantime, Dillon said, Green Airport must aggressively compete for new carriers, such as JetBlue Airways and AirTran Airways, and to lobby its tenants to add new routes.

That may require a major overhaul of the airport’s fee structure, Dillon said. In Manchester, he tried to lure airlines by keeping the per-passenger cost at half the price of Logan, relying on airline payments for no more than 25 percent of total airport revenue. At Green Airport, airline fees, including landing fees and fees charged for space in the terminal, made up 42 percent of revenue in the last fiscal year, and the per-passenger cost reached $7.69, which is $1.10 above Dillon’s goal.

“The cost per emplaned passenger here has grown. It is a focus to bring that as low as possible,” he said. “It comes down to the sales pitch. I would love to see the airlines operate at no cost here.”

To recruit additional flights, Dillon said, Green Airport will also need more support from Rhode Island businesses. In Orlando, for example, the German airline Lufthansa agreed to open shop only after a group of businesses promised to help pay for marketing flights and signed a contract guaranteeing to fill a minimum amount of seats.

In Rhode Island, he said, commitments from businesses could help bring down fares and lead low-cost carriers to chose this state over dozens of cities battling for their planes.

“Lack of support of the airport further deteriorates its ability to bring about a good rate structure. The business community has to support the airport in order for it to be successful,” Dillon said. “People start to take success for granted. They need to be reminded that the success can only continue if they continue to support the airport.”Runway expansion Business support Community relations

Kevin A. Dillon Age: 51 Education: B.S. in Business Administration, Adelphi University, 1979 A.A.S. in Criminal Justice, State University of New York, 1977 Employment: June 2007-present: deputy executive director, Orlando International Airport, Fla. Aug. 1999-May 2007: airport director, Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, N.H. Sept. 1996-Aug. 1999: director of aviation operations, Logan International Airport, Boston May 1996-Sept. 1996: acting general manager, LaGuardia Airport, N. Y. Jan. 1994-April 1996: manager, airport services division, LaGuardia Airport, N. Y.

bgedan@projo.com