Soaring Into a New Century

Over the next 100 years, Hartsfield’s words came to life, as the airport and the airline grew interconnected. Named the busiest in the world for 26 of the past 27 years, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport serves more than 100 million passengers a year. Delta, the airport’s largest hub, topped The Point Guy’s ranking of U.S. airlines for seven years in a row. It flies 200 million passengers a year worldwide.

The rest of the world looks to us as a standard bearer. ATL is not great because it is the busiest airport in the world. It’s the busiest airport in the world because it’s great. Ricky Smith, general manager, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

As they each celebrate their centennial with galas and historical retrospectives, they wrestle with new challenges – how to manage their growth and navigate the headwinds of the global economy and competition. And they remain inextricably connected, bolstering each other’s success and shaping the economy of Atlanta and the state of Georgia.

“They’re completely intertwined,” says Tim Mapes, Delta’s senior vice president and chief communications officer. “Even more broadly, the city of Atlanta, the South, the utility that Delta provides and the difference it has made when you look at other Southern cities that began comparable to Atlanta historically and what transportation and logistics and access has enabled, there’s no doubt that Hartsfield-Jackson and Delta are completely intertwined.”

“Mayors have come and gone, leaders of Delta have come and gone,” says Mapes. “But what has transcended that has been this partnership, this relationship, and we certainly don’t take it for granted. We’re prominent there, but we’re certainly not the only airline there. We compete every single day vigorously with a number of tails that you see taking off to parts and points all around the world. But the relationship has been incredible.”

Economic realities and domestic policies today threaten to upend international travel, while competitors in the Middle East and Asia vie for the airport’s “world’s busiest” status. Yet, ATL remains a source of pride and an economic driver for the Atlanta Metro area.

“The rest of the world looks to us as a standard bearer,” says Ricky Smith, Hartsfield-Jackson’s new general manager. The airport management team has a mantra: “ATL is not great because it is the busiest airport in the world. It’s the busiest airport in the world because it’s great.” That, says Smith, is what will guide the ATL team into its second century.

Ongoing Investments: Laurie Garrow, professor of civil engineering at Georgia Tech and an aviation expert. Photo credit: Stan Kaady.

Staying No. 1

Hartsfield-Jackson is the first airport in history to serve more than 100 million passengers in one year and continues to top passenger totals worldwide. Last year, it served approximately 108.1 million passengers, marking the second-highest annual passenger volume in its history, just shy of the 2019 record of 110 million. And the forecast is for that number to hit 125 million passengers by around 2030.

“The busiest airport is a little bit of luck and little bit of foresight,” says Laurie Garrow, professor of civil engineering at Georgia Tech and an aviation expert. Asa Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola Company who donated the land that would become ATL, saw the future of aviation, says Garrow. On the luck side of the equation – the airport’s location – it’s only a two-hour flight to most U.S. states. Plus, there are no competing airports nearby. “But then,” says Garrow, “consistently, Atlanta’s leaders have always made investments in the airport, and you don’t see that level of investment happening in other states currently in the U.S.”

High-Cost Industry: Kit Darby, an aviation consultant and retired airline pilot. Photo credit: contributed.

Maintaining the No. 1 distinction, says Garrow, requires ongoing investments. “If you’re not making the investments in additional capacity to have more planes take off and land either via runways or additional gates, staffing, TSA check-in lines, even the subtle things, parking, you’re not going to be able to sustain that growth.”

Even with investments, says Garrow, it’s just a matter of time before airports in the Middle East or Asia take over the No. 1 spot. “You’ll hit a limit at some point.”

Kit Darby, an aviation consultant and retired airline pilot, says that point may be just five years away, or sooner.

“The commodity of the airline seat is really becoming affordable for more people around the world,” says Darby. “We’re already there, but the rest of the world has an advantage in their ability to grow. We’re a large, mature market. Our growth rate will be incremental. [Asia and the Middle East] are slated to outgrow us.”

Forces within the U.S. are also threatening ATL’s No. 1 status. Tourism Economics, an analytics and consulting firm specializing in the travel and tourism industry, says tariffs, ongoing legal issues with international student visas and changes in immigration policies will contribute to a decline in international travel. The company predicts an 8.7% decline in U.S. international arrivals for the year overall, with the largest declines coming from Canada (down 20.2%) and Western Europe (decreasing 5.8%). Prior to the tariff and policy changes, the firm had predicted an 8.8% growth in international arrivals.

Instability will erode trust and have long-term consequences, Darby predicts.

“Aviation is a high-cost industry,” says Darby. “It’s hard to make long-term decisions with instability. The fate of the airport and the airline rise with broad measures of economic success. Immigration policies negatively impact travel and workers, [and] neither go well with a long-term capital-intensive business. Expensive airplanes, expensive real estate. All of that is at risk when you’re unstable.”

Delta’s Mapes says the airline has concerns around anything that could impede mobility and the free flow of people.

“As the airport goes, so too goes the economy, goes the growth and the future of the city of Atlanta, which is now a global international capital as opposed to a domestic Southern regional throughput point.”

Garrow, however, believes some of the drop in international travel to Atlanta could be offset by an increase in the demand for domestic travel.

As the airport goes, so too goes the economy… and the future of the city of Atlanta. Tim Mapes, senior vice president, Delta Air Lines

“You have a lot of flexibility on aligning your assets, which in this case are your planes, to where people want to fly,” says Garrow. “While we clearly are going to be seeing an impact on international travel coming in, that might mean a reduction in flight frequency and a redeployment of those assets to more profitable domestic routes.”

In February, Frontier Airlines announced a 40% expansion of operations at ATL by the summer. The low-cost carrier is adding two international and seven domestic routes for a total of 52 destinations. Frontier is currently the fastest-growing U.S. carrier at ATL, which serves as a hub for crew members. Frontier’s employment at ATL is projected to surpass 1,200 this year with an increase in pilots, flight attendants, airport customer service agents, ground handling and maintenance personnel.

ATL also expects significant traffic from major events, including the FIFA 2026 World Cup and Super Bowl LXII in 2028.

Fantastic Asset: Kristi Brigman, chief economic development officer for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, says the airport sets Atlanta apart from competitor cities. Photo credit: Daemon Baizan.

Driving the Economy

Hartsfield-Jackson is widely recognized as a top economic driver in the state, generating some $70 billion in revenue, nearly $35 billion in the metro area alone. And it’s the state’s largest employer with more than 63,000 people. The Metro Atlanta Chamber estimates direct jobs related to the airport and supporting aviation industries at 380,000.

“The airport is a fantastic asset for economic development,” says Kristi Brigman, chief economic development officer at the chamber.

It’s one of the chamber’s top assets when recruiting businesses to the Metro Atlanta area. Atlanta ranks fourth among U.S. cities for the number of Fortune 500 headquarters. It’s also home to 75 countries with consular or trade offices and, according to the chamber, 83,000 employees at companies headquartered in Europe – all looking for direct, easy flights.

“When a company comes to Atlanta, the airport is frequently cited as a prime consideration,” says Brigman. “The airport really does set us apart from many of our competitor cities or regions just because of the connectivity.”

To create opportunities for small business at the airport, ATL announced last February an 11-week academy called the Gateway to Growth Concessions Small Business Program to help entrepreneurs compete for concession opportunities.

Smith says he’s also looking to expand cargo operations as the more than 2,100 flights coming through the airport every day offer what he calls significant “belly space.”

“There’s enormous opportunity for us to grow our freight and cargo program,” says Smith. “We will be focusing on that in a very deliberate way.”

Cargo operations grew 6% last year, and ATL is currently the 12th largest air cargo hub in North America. The airport’s three cargo complexes provide more than 2 million square feet of warehousing.

Building for Tomorrow

Hartsfield-Jackson is now 10 years and more than $5 billion into an estimated $20 billion, 20-year capital program called ATLNext that’s designed to boost capacity, renew and replace existing facilities and enhance ATL’s aesthetic appeal.

“Atlanta is the mecca of airports. Everyone wants to know what Atlanta is doing,” says Chris Rogers, senior vice president of aviation at WSP, the engineering and professional services firm managing the airport’s infrastructure revitalization program. “It stays on the cutting edge of technology. They’re always the pioneer.”

Rogers describes ATLNext as “massive,” involving “hundreds” of concurrent projects – all underway while maintaining airport operations.

Modernization Effort: The Concourse D widening project is due to be completed in 2029. Photo credit: contributed.

“We’re [an] airport first,” says Rogers. “Our job is to do as minimal impact as possible while still trying to give them their desired results.”

A significant component of ATL’s modernization efforts is the $1.4 billion Concourse D widening project. The goal is to expand the concourse by 75%, increasing the width from 60 to 99 feet, doubling the size of holding rooms, enhancing restroom and concession areas and accommodating larger aircraft. Construction hit the halfway point in March and is due to be completed in 2029. The project utilizes an innovative modular approach, where large sections of the concourse are built off-site and then transported to the airport.

To address increasing passenger volumes, the airport has also begun construction of a new parking deck at the South Terminal that should add nearly 6,700 spaces and smart technology, including digital parking space availability and wayfinding. The deck is scheduled for completion in 2026.

In May, ATL announced the expansion and modernization of the Plane Train – its automated people mover system connecting terminals and concourses. It will add 14 driverless-with-manual-override vehicles by the end of March 2026, increasing its fleet from 59 to 73 train cars. The expansion will increase capacity from 10,000 to 12,000 passengers per hour in each direction and reduce wait times between trains from 108 seconds to 90 seconds. The goal is to phase out aging cars and fully transition to the new cars.

Rogers says with an airport as large as this one, the focus must always be on renewal and replacement to meet the capacity demands of the future.

“At the end of the day, why are we doing this? It’s for people, the customers, the employees that manage the airport,” says Rogers. “It’s always about people.”

And those people – at least the passengers – are often less than satisfied, according to a 2024 study by data analytics firm JD Powers – ranking ATL 17 out of 20 in the mega airports category. More than 29,000 people scored the airport on a range of factors, including arrival and departure experiences and terminal facilities. They gave ATL a score of 574 out of 1,000 – more than 20 points below the average. Only Chicago’s O’Hare International, Toronto Pearson International and Newark Liberty International scored lower.

“With record-breaking passenger counts, peak periods do result in higher volumes,” Smith, the general manager, said in an email. “But even as we’ve had the busiest days in ATL’s history, our teams have kept wait times steady through aggressive staffing, collaboration and technology upgrades. That said, I recognize that when lines form – at security, concessions, or restrooms – passengers feel it. That’s exactly why we’re studying every aspect of the customer journey, and why reducing wait times across the board is a top priority.”

Smith says he will soon launch the development of a master plan for the entire ATL campus that will “set the course for the future of the airport” as they approach 130 million passengers.

Concurrent Projects: Chris Rogers, senior vice president of aviation at WSP, the engineering and professional services firm managing the aiport’s revitalization program. Photo credit: Stan Kaady.

“Operating at this scale means every issue – from weather to major events—has a ripple effect,” says Smith. “When things go wrong, it affects thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of people. That’s why we’re re-examining every part of our operation and administration, from technology to staffing to facilities, to ensure ATL is prepared not just for today’s volume, but for the future.”

Regional Connectivity

Of the 300,000 people passing through the airport daily, about 40% enter or depart through the surrounding area, whether to spend the night at a nearby hotel or use MARTA, Uber or a personal car to arrive from or return home, according to Gerald McDowell, executive director of the ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts (AACIDs). Making that experience safe, pleasant and smooth is the AACIDs’ goal, and McDowell says they’ve made great progress in the decade or so that they have been around.

The AACIDs invest $150,000 annually into landscaping improvements and $500,000 in maintaining the 15.46-square mile AACID area. McDowell says visible police patrols, license plate readers and a new video surveillance system have contributed to a decline in criminal activity.

Great Progress: Gerald McDowell, executive director of the ATL Aiport Community Improvement Districts. Photo credit: Eric Sun.

The AACIDs are also working to improve connectivity to the surrounding area through transportation projects, including a just launched microtransit service through SHIFT, a program to improve commuting for the 157,000+ employees in and around the airport. The SHIFT on Demand app-activated service fills gaps during the off hours of traditional transit options.

Design of a personal rapid transit pilot project is underway and is scheduled to launch at the end of 2026. The project will connect the SkyTrain at the Georgia International Convention Center and the Gateway Center Arena using small, on-demand, autonomous pod cars on a dedicated track. If successful, the plan is to expand the system.

McDowell says these projects will go a long way to improve area connectivity.

“A lot of credit has to be given to Atlanta and Hartsfield-Jackson for recognizing that it was necessary to make a significant capital investment for the growth, not only of the airport operations, but the areas around the airports,” he says.

McDowell says one of his biggest challenges is changing outdated perceptions of the South Metro area around the airport to attract new businesses and residents.

“It is a good area for investment. It’s a good area for revitalization. It’s a great area for new development,” says McDowell. “There’s a lot of collaboration going on outside the fence so that as Hartsfield-Jackson grows, the community is growing with it.”

Charting the Next Century

Airport leaders and industry experts agree – among the biggest challenges for ATL’s future will be workforce development to keep up with staffing demands and infrastructure funding.

“That challenge exists across the industry,” says Smith. “The federal government’s ability to generate the kind of funding that’s necessary to expand our infrastructure is grossly trailing behind what’s happening in other countries. That’s a major detriment to our ability to maintain or grow capacity.”

“We cannot become complacent,” says the chamber’s Brigman. “Innovation is continuously needed to ensure the capacity for projected growth. The numbers are not decreasing. They’re only getting higher and higher.”

Georgia Tech’s Garrow says the airport can’t just keep up but needs to stay one step ahead of technology and anticipate the needs of passengers – whether it’s new hydrogen-based aircraft or a decline in parking revenue from autonomous vehicles. But she’s not worried.

“We can do it. We’re Atlanta.”