Sonja Murray

Managing Director

Sonjia Murray is Managing Director of The Meehan Aviation Group, with over 22 years of experience providing economic consulting in commercial aviation. Ms. Murray spent 17 years previously at a global aviation consulting firm, (ICF SH&E), supporting a variety of airport and airline clients large and small worldwide. Sonjia started as an analyst advancing to a Vice President directing a number of client projects.

She specializes in air service development, strategic planning, market and economic analysis, project management and state/regional airport system planning and economic impact studies. Sonjia has previously worked for several small hub airport markets including Bozeman/Yellowstone, Burlington International, Palm Springs, Little Rock, Hilton Head Island and Islip/MacArthur airports. Ms. Murray has successfully helped attract new air service at Burlington, Bozeman/Yellowstone, Palm Springs International and Islip/MacArthur. She has led two small community air service development program (SCASDP) efforts that have resulted in grants to support new air service at Bozeman/Yellowstone, Palmdale Regional Airport as well as supported the proposal effort for Monterey-Peninsula Airport along with a number of key constituents. At Burlington, Sonjia helped attract jetBlue service to Orlando Florida and at Islip her efforts and analysis set the foundation for Frontier’s decision to enter the market in 2017. For Bozeman/Yellowstone, she helped establish a coalition of public-private community partners to support a SCASDP grant that led to the success of an award and ultimately new nonstop air service from United to NY/Newark and ultimately seasonal operations from jetBlue to JFK. At Palm Springs several new routes were successfully secured to Atlanta, Sacramento and Vancouver.

In addition to working with small and non-hub airports to attract air service development, Sonjia has successfully helped large gateway hubs increase and enhance their flight offerings particularly with international flights. Sonjia has worked with large gateways supporting their air service programs in leading roles including Miami, Los Angeles, Boston/Logan, Denver, Houston and Salt Lake City. She understands the key role of large hubs in supporting air service to small and non-hub airports. Sonjia has helped to successfully secure numerous new services at Miami, Los Angeles and Boston to Europe, Asia, the Gulf/ME and Latin America. Sonjia is expert in understanding the industry data needed to analyze air service opportunities, follows carrier development closely and has the strategic insight required to develop a strong business case and has in-depth experience at developing community partnerships to help build the critical support needed to demonstrate local commitment to carriers.