Mayor Spencer Announces Planned Retirement of Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge

Hamm-Niebruegge has served as Director of St. Louis Lambert International Airport since 2010; will step down in fall of 2026

(This release comes from the Office of the Mayor – City of St. Louis)

ST. LOUIS, MO (November 5, 2025): Mayor Cara Spencer announced today that Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, Director of St. Louis Lambert International Airport, will retire in the fall of 2026. Hamm-Niebruegge has served as Airport Director since January 2010, during which time she has led the airport through natural disaster, helped secure new international flight service, and has put in motion a plan to transform the airport in the coming years.

“On its best day, running something as complex as a major airport is challenging work. For fifteen years, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge has led our airport with excellence, grace, and distinction. I want to thank her for her service to St. Louis,” said Spencer. “Our airport and our region are much better off as a result of her leadership, and her work developing the plan to transform the airport has set the stage for our next chapter.”

Highlights of Hamm-Niebruegge’s leadership of the airport include:

• Guiding the plan to transform the airport into a modern new, single-terminal facility.
• Returning passenger levels to pre-Covid levels by Summer 2023.
• Strengthening relationships with the business community to ensure the airport continues to grow its economic footprint.
• Securing new nonstop service to new international destinations, including Frankfurt, Germany, and London, England on Lufthansa and British Airways, respectively.
• Restoring operations after the April EF4 2011 tornado, which caused approximately $25 million in damage to the airport, including significant damage to Concourse C of Terminal 1.

“This has been a remarkable opportunity to transform the airport into not only the transportation center the region needs, but also the modern front door St. Louis deserves,” said Hamm-Niebruegge. “It has been a true honor to lead this airport for the past fifteen years, and I will depart knowing that we will leave it better than we found it. The best days for Lambert and for St. Louis lie ahead.”

Civic leaders who worked with the Airport Director to grow the airport and secure the nonstop St. Louis-London flights with British Airways praise her leadership as paving the way for what is next in St. Louis.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Rhonda on matters affecting the growth of our region’s economic base and know that her years of experience, her attention to detail and her love of St. Louis will be seen for years to come,” said Ambassador Kevin O’Malley, Chair of the County Port Authority,

Hamm-Niebruegge will retire officially in the fall of 2026. A national search will be launched for her successor.

Hamm-Niebruegge has been the Director of St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) since January 2010. Prior to STL, Hamm-Niebruegge logged over 25 years in aviation management positions with American Airlines, Trans World Airlines and Ozark Air Lines; a majority of her career has been based in St. Louis.