“I don’t know where I’m going when I die, … but one thing is sure: I’ll change planes at Atlanta.”
The adage rings as true today as it did when published in a July 1978 article in The New York Times.
At that time, Atlanta boasted the world’s second-busiest airport, behind longtime nemesis Chicago O’Hare International, with which it battled for decades to claim the top spot.
But since 1998, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has sat largely unchallenged atop the “world’s busiest” throne.
For much of the last 100 years, Atlanta’s airport — and its varying degrees of busyness — have been an existential part of the city’s identity.
Before construction was even complete on then-Candler Field, a 1933 Atlanta Journal article dubbed it “already one of the south’s busiest airports.”
“Atlanta was not really known globally. It’s not New York, it’s not Chicago, it’s not Los Angeles,” former Atlanta airport General Manager Angela Gittens told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “So for, pardon the term, little old Atlanta to be the busiest airport in the world? That’s a big friggin’ deal!”
The airport has also been the most important economic driver for the region.
Hartsfield-Jackson “is the reason that Georgia is now the eighth-biggest state in the U.S., and we continue to enjoy the growth that we have,” said former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
But those superlatives have not come without costs: to Atlantans in a packed Plane Train, but also to the airport’s neighbors who have faced noise, air and water pollution and, in some cases, demolition of entire communities.
And Hartsfield-Jackson expects to get busier: 125 million passengers by 2029.
Can Atlanta guard its “world’s busiest” title along the way?
In a full circle moment, Chicago O’Hare is hot on Atlanta’s heels for the title of most flights (not passengers).
Second-place Dubai already claims the busiest title in terms of international travelers and nabbed the big title during the first quarter of this year.
Mayor Andre Dickens told the AJC they “keep eyes on that” and it’s why the airport keeps expanding. However, he qualified, expansions are “not just to keep the title, but to serve the people.”
When asked whether it’s important for Atlanta to retain its crown, new Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Ricky Smith was clear: “ATL is not great because it’s the busiest airport in the world. It’s the busiest airport in the world because it’s great.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
The backstory
When Gittens took the top job at then-Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in 1993, she didn’t expect to oversee its rise into the “busiest.”
The airport executive was actually hired to handle something closer to a dumpster fire.
It was an organization reeling from a bribery scandal that sent councilmen and her predecessor to jail, threats of a state takeover, the need to redo the entire concessions program, stalled Concourse E construction and a massive scramble to get all of it ready for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games.
But in 1998, when she left, the crown would land firmly atop Atlanta’s head.
The airport had already been a thriving hub, thanks to parallel runways enabling more plane movements and the fact that Atlanta-based carriers, including Delta Air Lines, had successfully deployed the now-ubiquitous hub-and-spoke strategy here.
Plus, as the city’s only airport, Hartsfield-Jackson has never had to share its traffic.
A 1941 Atlanta Constitution piece proclaimed the airport a “$2.5 million investment in the future.” The next year, it was named the nation’s busiest in terms of total flights (not passengers).
In 1955, it became the “busiest air transfer hub in the world” — between the hours of noon and 2 p.m.
By 1978, Delta and Eastern Airlines had nearly 80% of Atlanta’s capacity. In 1985, the airport declared victory as the world’s busiest in total flights again, to reigning champion Chicago’s chagrin.
But when Eastern liquidated in 1991, ATL fell out of the “busiest” game; 51 gates across one and a half concourses went dark.
That’s when Gittens came in, tasked with getting a hub airport ready for an unprecedented influx of international visitors.
The roughly 100 projects she oversaw built up the infrastructure needed for those visiting the city — not just connecting through.
The team expanded baggage claim and ticketing, added parking, finished the international concourse and pushed to “upgrade, renovate and redecorate almost every inch of public space,” The Constitution proclaimed in 1995.
Simultaneously, the Games put Atlanta on the map as a place worth visiting and maybe, say, establishing a corporate headquarters. Total passengers to and from Atlanta started ticking up.
Gittens had to change her commute mid-tenure because of new traffic from the Olympics-sparked growth.
International carriers were also coming, in part to avoid what she called New York’s “horror show” airports — and Delta was growing in Eastern’s absence.
By the year 1998, it all combined to earn Atlanta the “world’s busiest” title for the first time, with 73.5 million passengers — almost double its 1991 total.
The title “fell into our lap. It’s not something that I remember in any strategic plan,” said Balram Bheodari, who worked for Gittens and later served as general manager.
Credit: AJC FILE
Credit: AJC FILE
The ‘most important runway in America’
In the late 1970s, then-Mayor Maynard Jackson moved an interstate to make way for the airport’s growth. In 2006, Atlanta accomplished another arguably absurd project: opening a 9,000-foot runway overtop a different highway.
A fifth runway was needed, officials argued, for ATL to continue growing without worsening delays.
Former General Manager Ben DeCosta oversaw the construction, which allowed for roughly 100,000 more takeoffs and landings a year.
“That’s why we called it ‘the most important runway in America,’” he said. “It kept Atlanta as the busiest and on the path for more and more growth.”
But the task wasn’t easy. Doing so required a belief that it was possible, he said: a “culture of confidence.”
Gittens also cited this as something that sets Atlanta’s airport apart: “The need for the airport is respected.”
Business and political leadership have repeatedly made big things happen for the airport. “New York (for example) didn’t really see itself as being dependent on aviation,” Gittens said.
“Atlanta is a different story.”
As former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin explained, if an airport issue came up, it wasn’t sent to the top of the priority list; “It was at the top of the list already.”
And because of that, large projects — like building a runway over a highway — were in some ways “easier,” she said, because you had to put all your resources behind it.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
The costs of being the busiest
Being on top has not come without downsides.
Any Atlanta passenger caught in a long security line, jammed like a sardine into a Plane Train or unable to find a seat at a food court can attest.
But the brunt of the airport’s negative impacts, including noise, pollution and traffic, are felt by its surrounding Clayton County and South Fulton communities, says Hannah Palmer, a local activist and writer who grew up on the south side.
Those communities also face a stigma, Palmer said.
“It’s like any sort of big infrastructure. You don’t want to live next to it,” she said. “Everybody needs the airport, but you don’t want to live right next to it because it devalues your home.”
And sometimes, it forces you out of that home.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The town Palmer’s parents lived in when she was born, Mountain View, was demolished to make way for airport expansion in the late 1970s.
During the fifth runway expansion, thousands were pushed to sell hundreds of acres in Clayton County and College Park, including what had been known as the “One Square Mile,” a thriving, century-old African American community.
Some were acquired for the runway and a new rental car facility. Other parcels were purchased for noise buffer reasons.
Former “One Square Mile” residents have banded together as PHOAA (Preserving the Heritage of the Original African Americans of College Park, Ga.) to soon begin building a museum.
The “One Square Mile” had gotten used to living near the world’s busiest airport, and many were employed by it, said Gloria Abdullah, PHOAA’s president and founder, whose relatives lived there.
But then came the land abatement program prompted by increasing airplane noise.
“The residents were basically disbanded, the churches moved out of the area, all of the businesses are gone,” said Linda Hightower, PHOAA’s vice president.
Hightower’s 90-year-old mother was one of the last to leave. She “had lived in College Park ever since she was about 5 years old. She really didn’t want to go.”
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The relationship between the airport and its neighbors is “complicated,” Palmer agreed. “It’s like a company town.”
Clayton County has long tried unsuccessfully to challenge the ways it misses out on airport tax revenue. Hapeville, meanwhile, recently accused Delta of leveraging a loophole to skip out on hotel/motel taxes.
However, College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom said the city simply wouldn’t be where it is today without the airport. “This is a relationship that has paid dividends for us and the city of Atlanta.”
Shannon James, the CEO of Aerotropolis Atlanta, is trying to make sure those dividends continue to pay off.
The majority-Black communities around the airport, he said, have the slowest per capita income growth in metro Atlanta.
His economic development organization helps companies locate in the area, where the jurisdictional complexity of airspace, height and building material restrictions can be a deterrent.
While the stigma of being near the airport has certainly “stalled our growth,” James said he’s working to leverage that proximity for the area’s own benefit.
The rest of the state and metro Atlanta have done a “helluva job” marketing Hartsfield-Jackson to recruit investment, he said.
“Now it’s our job.”
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Can Atlanta stay the busiest?
As Hartsfield-Jackson prepares for an additional 20 million annual passengers in the next four years, Smith, its new general manager, said the question of whether or not Atlanta can hold its title is largely beyond its control.
“If we fall to number two, it won’t be because the city, the region … changed,” Smith said. “It’s because something happened in Europe or the Middle East, something we have no control over.”
Dubai is undergoing a “mega-airport” expansion, with sights set on 260 million annual passengers. Istanbul’s airport expects to be able to host 200 million by 2028. Saudi Arabia is building what it says will be the world’s largest airport with capacity for 185 million by 2050.
Former Mayor Reed said the title and passenger growth are akin to a good credit rating. “If we were to begin to lose traffic and go below the 100-105 million passenger number, I think that it would create alarms.”
But former general manager Gittens said at some point, the volumes cancel out any economic and efficiency benefits. “The purpose of the airport is to serve the community, not just to get big.”
The airport’s master plan proposes ways to squeeze more capacity out of the airport’s 4,700 acres, including further concourse construction and a sixth runway on existing property.
Smith told the AJC he doesn’t yet have an opinion on the need for another runway, but he said the airport may need to expand beyond its current fence line to handle more growth.
Being the world’s busiest never mattered to former Mayor Franklin, she insists.
“I want to be the best at customer service. The best at efficiency. The best at safety.”
So, can Atlanta keep its title? Should it?
“That’s like expecting an athlete to be the fastest their whole career,” she said.
“I mean, what is that? You’re fast when you’re fast!”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has launched a series of stories to mark the 100th anniversaries of both Delta Air Lines and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. This is the latest story in the series.
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