The opening of the Atlanta airport's new international terminal will not be delayed, despite legal wrangling over the awarding of restaurant and bar contracts at the airport, city officials predicted Wednesday.
"At this point, there is no change in our plan to open the international terminal in May," Duriya Farooqui, the city's chief operating officer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday. "Based on the current status, we are still planning on a mid-May date."
Her comment came a day after a Fulton County judge granted 20 extra days to companies who lost in the massive selection for shop contracts to file formal protests .
But the city city's lawyers can still negotiate with winners and hammer out details of the contracts -- things it planned to do anyway -- so the order does not alter the targeted opening date, Farooqui said.
Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Louis Miller also expressed confidence. "I think we're still going to have our opening in mid-May as we've been planning for," Miller said. "I think we're going to be successful in the protests."
The terminal off I-75 will give international travelers a new front door to Atlanta. The city, which owns and runs Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, is trying to install a new lineup of shops throughout the complex, and leaders want to avoid anything that would mar the terminal's debut.
Other airports such as Denver International Airport and London Heathrow gained worldwide notoriety in years past from snags when major terminals opened.
In addition to extending the protest period, the Fulton judge, Constance Russell, also ordered the city to release additional documents to losing companies by Jan. 27. City employees have already begun combing through 250,000 pages of emails, according to city attorney Cathy Hampton.
Russell said the city's representatives could sign contracts for the new concessions deals, but only after giving the plaintiffs 24 hours notice.
A fourth company filed a formal protest with the city on Tuesday after failing to win a slot. The city's chief procurement officer, Adam Smith, makes an initial ruling on such actions and has already turned down three protests. But the companies can appeal to a hearing officer, and they can sue if they choose.
Despite the stated confidence of city officials, Atlanta's representatives have at several points warned that legal wrangling or other slowdowns could put the May opening at risk.
On Jan. 3, Mayor Kasim Reed used the need to start generating concessions revenue to help pay off construction bonds in pushing the City Council to approve the concessions deals.
"Those payments are getting ready to start coming due," he said. "We are trying to keep the schedule to pay our bills."
The city says the airport has $193 million in unencumbered cash -- far more than needed to make initial payments over the next year, according to Miller. Farooqui said the city has "no concerns about meeting our bond repayment obligations at this time."
The primary issue, she said, is credibility for the future city projects that may need to be funded with bonds.
Seth Lehman, a senior director with Fitch Ratings, said he has an "A+" rating on $1.6 billion of Hartsfield-Jackson's senior debt, among the highest ratings for a hub airport. Lehman said cost overruns or significant delays could affect a rating, but he added that financial backers understand that finishing details on such massive projects may result in short delays of a few weeks.
In the Tuesday hearing before Judge Russell, one of the city's outside attorneys raised the specter of "dark, empty places" at the international terminal if one of the plaintiffs, Midfield Concession Enterprises, got its way. The company had asked for an injunction to stop the city from executing the new contracts until final resolution of its administrative and legal challenges.
Russell did not grant that injunction, but extended the protest deadline until Feb. 6.
"The court’s ruling allows the city to proceed with negotiating and finalizing food and beverage contracts at the new international terminal without interruption," the city's attorneys said in a statement.
Last week, Atlanta warned the Georgia Supreme Court that a judge's ruling that blocks Atlanta from entering into a contract with a currency exchange firm until early February could delay the terminal. On Wednesday, the court dismissed Atlanta's emergency motion, leaving that contract blocked until early Feb. 3.
Farooqui did not give much credence to the suggestion that the terminal could open without shops in place.
"There are a lot of what-if scenarios, and we could certainly go through a list of what they are," she said. "But we have galvanized our departments to focus on the goal, because this opening is going to set the city's brand on an international stage."
HMSHost, which won major contracts in the selection process, said it is moving ahead in negotiating the details. Delta Air Lines, Hartsfield-Jackson's biggest operator, said it is also training employees, testing its systems and crafting its communications to tell customers about using the new terminal.
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