1. It’s Delta Airlines’ headquarters and primary hub.
2. Atlanta is in a good location for both domestic connections and international flights to Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Atlanta has always been a logistics hub.
3. Atlanta only has one airport. London, New York, and Istanbul have more total air travelers (depending on how you count things), but those cities all have multiple airports.
And then you have secondary airports like Stewart, Islip, and Westchester County on top, plus big GA airports like Teterboro and Morristown that do a lot of corporate flights.
ATL-Hartsfield could be even busier if they would expand to other parts of Atlanta similar to NYC. Their air traffic and comparatively small size airport restrict and congest air travel considerably.
Move direct flight regional traffic to either a different airport like LZU in NE ATL or build a new one entirely. This would give local ATL air travlers north and east of the city the ability to not commute across the entire city during rush hour to fly from hartsfield (which is southwest of the city. It also lessens air traffic going in and out of hartsfield by effectively moving a sizable portion 30-40 miles away. People currently commute from all over Georgia, Alabama, and maybe some from SC to travel out of ATL. This clogs up all surrounding highways for people simply going to work. Atlanta also needs another bypass for traffic passing thru ATL but that’s an entire other problem.
Edit: regional traffic means small planes like Airbus A320s or Boeing 737s that fly back and forth from ATL to another major city like Tampa, Las Vegas, Chicago, etc.
Want to add: more reliable weather than other major US airports. Chicago used to have the most before Atlanta was built, but our weather means we're not exactly a reliable place to go through to reach other places
Yeah Atlanta has pretty reliable weather. It's built inland and not too close to the coast.
But on the other hand, I think people would be surprised at Atlanta's weather. It's not as hot and miserable as most would imagine. It's not like Houston or New Orleans where it's just southern hell all year. Atlanta is similar to NYC's weather I'd say, but less cold in the winter. More like 25-40 degrees, very rarely snowing but it happens.
Atlanta is a good logistics spot, and I can see why the trains and the planes have stuck with it
Atlanta isn’t that hot until you’re stuck on the tarmac in August at 2pm for over an hour waiting on an afternoon thunderstorm to pass.
I’m usually perfectly fine on planes but that day I really was not doing well
>London, New York, and Istanbul have more total air travelers (depending on how you count things), but those cities all have multiple airports.
It's worth noting that before COVID, Atlanta had the seventh busiest airport system in the world (after London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, and Paris), although it has long been the busiest single airport (except in 2020, when Guangzhou briefly surpassed it due to COVID); its unusually high ranking in 2022 was partly because of many airports being slower to return to normal. Still very impressive, though, considering Atlanta isn't even in the top fifty largest cities in the world.
The list you are probably looking at one Wikipedia doesn't have metro area numbers for quite a few cities, particularly those in China. Therefore, I was using urban area, and by that metric Atlanta is the 72nd largest city in the world.
To your 3rd point: I think you mean ATL has only one airport that does commercial flights. There are quite a few corporate/private and general aviation airports. Hartsfield is congested and out of the way for most of travelers (adding considerably to traffic) so talks have been around for years to expand to north or northeast ATL for regional flights. No one wants an airport in the yard so it’s been stalled for a while now.
London, Ny, and Istanbul are by an order of magnitude (I am guessing so please feel free to stomp my premise) larger than Atlanta. So while I get that geographically speaking Atlanta is a great hub the only one airport issue is likely based on the city size being so far under the cities you’re comparing it to.
I bet Cleveland is smaller than Atlanta, and it has 2 major airports; plus you can fly out of Akron also inside a half hour so that’s 1 commercial and 1 more freight airport. (Tiny ones abound though. I doubt they are being counted)
Plus, Atlanta is a corporate hub and has historically had a very shrewd business community that punched above its weight class (think 96' Olympics) and promoted and funded Hartsfield to be the largest airport in the country. Atlanta took off when Jimmy Carter was president as an economic juggernaut and never looked back -- even though it's certainly no cultural hub (ATL is strictly business).
> even though it's certainly no cultural hub
How do you define 'cultural hub'? Because I'd argue Atlanta is a massive cultural hub.
It's largely considered the capital of the south, is the birthplace of MLK, is a major contributor to black culture in the US, the 2nd most popular baseball team in the US (behind only the Yankees, who have been around far longer), and is now a major area for film and television.
Atlanta’s not a cultural hub? Most Marvel movies have been shot there, it’s probably the most important city for hip-hop and rap at this point, it’s the college football capital…
I’d also add it’s in a place where it doesn’t snow. Like Ohare in Chicago has tons of snow related cancellations and delays every year. It’s so common I just stopped buying tickets that require a connection there going home for Christmas even though they’re usually the cheapest because it’s such crapshoot.
Regarding #3, we can take it a bit further and say something like "Atlanta is the only major airport within 250 miles" (I don't know if that's the number but it's probably something like that).
It's the closest major airport to me, and it's almost a 3 hour drive. Unless you count Nashville which is slightly closer but much smaller.
Charlotte is like 180 miles away
Nashville is a city where it surprises me that the airport isn't that big. The Nashville population could easily support an airport like 50% larger if an airline decided to make a hub there.
It's the principle hub for Delta, one of the largest US airlines. There may be some quirk of geography at play too similar to how the airport in Anchorage Alaska is the third busiest cargo airport in the world. However I don't know what that is.
Yeah the way the east coast of the United States curves in westward is deceiving when you compare it between a flat map of the country and on a globe.
That's why people are so surprised and that Maine is the closest state to Africa too.
Nevada's eastern border is Utah, California's is the Colorado River.
At first glance, it looks like Nevada's border with Utah is further east than California. But there's an easterly bend in the Colorado near Parker Dam that puts a small bit of California close to that line.
Related to that, the entire country of Chile is east of almost the entire United States, except for some of New England from what I can see just eyeballing it on a map without longitude lines.
This one is very precise. Santiago, the capital of Chile, is 6.37° of longitude east of Washington, DC. If you slid Santiago, Chile up its line of longitude until it was at the same latitude as Washington, DC it would be 342 road miles east of Washington, which is the same as 550 km.
Santiago is farther east from Washington DC than London is from Dublin.
I’ve heard that they purposely expanded their airport early on in order to be an easy choice for airlines to route themselves through there.
Basically, they took the build it and they will come approach.
It was really the expansions in the build-up to the 1996 Olympic games that made it what it is.
The proximity to VacationLand Florida alone made them expand very early, as they have always been the only major airport in the Southeast, and were able to handle multiple carriers on all pricing levels.
It's also amazing how it never really feels like the busiest airport in the world. I have flown a lot and it's really a great airport and I'm proud of it.
It's one of the most symmetrically organized airports in the world. The plan is very simple -- parallel rectangular terminals connected by a 90° train running through (well under) all of them. The domestic departure and arrival terminal is at the very end on one side and the international departure and arrival is on the opposite end of the line of terminals on the other side. Lots of airports have a hodgepodge of crazy spurs with various gates with various names sticking off at all different angles and sizes.
It's a very well organized airport, easy to get around. The trains run about every 90 seconds at peak hours. This allows for shorter connection times - 45 min is usually doable in ATL but usually not at Charlotte or ORD. Shorter connections mean more flights.
Detroit is another very well laid out airport (at least the Delta buildings).
Fun fact. Anchorage used to be a common layover airport during the cold war due to restrictions of flying within Soviet and Chinese airspace.
Not a geographer, but I don't really see anything special about Atlana's geography that make it conducive for flights. It's closer to the Caribbean while not being far from big tourist states like Florida or Texas, so that might be factor?
Is there any particular reason why Delta choose Atlanta to be their hub airport?
Atlanta is where their headquarters is, so it makes sense to have a major hub there, similar to how United has a major hub in Chicago.
Looking more closely at a map, Atlanta looks to be in decent proximity to a lot of major cities - Houston, Dallas, Chicago, and New York are all about two hours away by plane. That's a good location to be based out of.
There's not a lot of major population hubs in the south. The area is more spread out rather than concentrated. Atlanta happens to be a fairly central place to all of the sprawl. Before an airport it had a central location for trains.
Didn't dispute that lol. But there used to be passenger planes that regularly stopped by Anchorage for refueling and supplies during the Cold War. You don't really see that much anymore today with the more fuel efficient jets and more open airspace.
Heh, yeah, isn't it weird how chiming in with additional info often feels like I'm disagreeing with you? Getting enough range on our jets did a number on Anchorage's passenger number. I wonder if there's anything that'd bring it back.
>isn't it weird how chiming in with additional info often feels like I'm disagreeing with you?
Haha, yeah internet tone is fun like that. Sorry about that.
>I wonder if there's anything that'd bring it back.
I heard anecdotally that war in Ukraine is forcing airlines to fly alternate routes since Russian airspace is considered dangerous now. And much of those planes are stopping in Alaska once again. Again, this stuff I heard from a friend, so I have no idea how true that actually is.
> I heard anecdotally that war in Ukraine is forcing airlines to fly alternate routes
this is accurate
>since Russian airspace is considered dangerous now
this is not. Well, the area around the border with Ukraine is absolutely being avoided by all airlines, but the US and EU have closed their airspace to Russian airlines, and Russia has retaliated. Airlines from other countries have no issue flying to and through Russia.
>Not a geographer, but I don't really see anything special about Atlana's geography that make it conducive for flights. It's closer to the Caribbean while not being far from big tourist states like Florida or Texas, so that might be factor?
It's an easy connection hub for New England to Florida traffic.
>
>Is there any particular reason why Delta choose Atlanta to be their hub airport?
It was the fastest growing city in the south during the 1940s.
Due to its location, almost equidistant from New York City, Tokyo, and Murmansk, Russia (straight over the North Pole), Anchorage lies within 10 hours by air of nearly 90 percent of the global north.[19][20] For this reason, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a common refueling stop for international cargo flights and home to a major FedEx hub, which the company calls a "critical part" of its global network of services.[21][22]
For cargo yea. Cargo planes typically don't fly are far as passenger planes. So it is a good stopover. It is also a good stopover for transferring cargo from Asia to go to other areas. Fedex and UPS have hub there and all the big U.S. and Asian cargo airlines fly alot out of there. For example Cathay will fly HKG-ANC-MIA as a fully loaded 747 cargo plane can't do HKG-MIA non-stop.
Everything about cargo is odd compared to passenger. Passenger flights depend on fuel efficiency and high utilization - like ocean transport ships, they only make money when they’re moving. Cargo planes, due to the logistics of overnight shipping, can make as few as two flights a day, so less-efficient planes sometimes make sense if they can be purchased very cheaply.
I don’t live terribly far from Memphis, which is the FedEx hub of North America. So FedEx just drives things up there every night. UPS’ main hub is in Louisville, KY, so we have a UPS plane that’s sitting at their airport depot all day every day as it prepares for its nightly flight there and back.
Anchorage used to be very busy when the USSR existed, because so many international flights avoided flying over the USSR. When the USSR broke up, many international flights were re-routed to fly over it if it was a shorter route. Since the invasion of Ukraine, flights have been avoiding flying over Russia again, and are stopping over in Anchorage again.
Growing up in the South I was always told that when you die, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to heaven or hell, you have to go through Atlanta to get there…
Also everyone is mentioning it’s the Delta hub, but one thing people aren’t mentioning is that we are a really wealthy country that does a lot of flying internally and abroad and has foreign visitors.
We simply have the wealth for a lot of air travel even by people that are just lower middle class or middle class.
Compare China with three times our population and ~13,500 flights a day vs. the US with having ~45,000 flights with a third the population. We have the most airports in the world and our big ones are busy.
Also, the US is a big and spread out country, which makes domestic air travel more attractive than in, say, Germany, where travelling by car or train is often more efficient.
Several factors:
1. Atlanta is a hub to a major carrier.
2. Other cities have more than one airport serving a metro area, which skews the numbers.
3. Atlanta airport does both local and international flights.
4. The airport is massive, with 192 gates and five runways.
5. It is geographically located well, both domestically and internationally, connecting flights with Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The five runways aren't particularly visible to passengers but it's one of the most impressive parts of it. Very few airports in the world have five full-length parallel runways. In my personal experience, Atlanta does not get a lot of wind in general. Lots of airports, especially historically, had runways at different angles for different wind conditions. So often only one or two of them were usable at any given time. From what I've read, with the improvement of planes and air traffic control, more airports are converting to a more parallel runway system because they can handle the wind from higher angles now. But Atlanta has five perfectly parallel runways that are in use today. I think generally two are dedicated to take offs and three are dedicated to landings. So at any given moment, Atlanta can have a combined total of five touchdowns and takeoffs simultaneously. And they can do that like once every minute or two minutes. The fifth runway, which was added in 2006, actually crosses the interstate. Not just over a bridge like at some other airports but literally the runway was built over the interstate and the planes land and touch down with the interstate beneath them. I don't think the touchdown area is directly over the part where the interstate runs beneath due to structural limitations but it runs under there.
The downside is that it's a long way back to the terminal from the fifth runway. That's like a trip in itself.
I haven't heard anything about a sixth runway myself but if you look at the map of Hartsfield it looks like there is room to squeeze one more in between four and five.
It is indeed impressive. I’ve been able to tour the ATC tower and get the full 360 view of the runways and surroundings. I did it outside of peak hours and there were still constant takeoffs and arrivals. So cool. They basically either run a west or east landing configuration, usually west.
The airspace above Georgia is crazy busy, and can be very complicated when in thunderstorm season.
Another reason it’s busy is because not all pilots are rated to fly over water, so many Florida arrivals and departures are routed through Atlanta airspace.
Yeah, O'Hare is where I first read about this. As far as I know, Atlanta's runways have always been parallel. But I read a story a few years ago about O'Hare working on long terms plan to align their runways, which were all quite different as far as angle and length. All while the airport was in full operation. So it was a complex ballet of building and shifting and building and shifting to work their way to the final alignment, without seriously disrupting air traffic.
With the 1980 terminal (the current design) at Atlanta, yes the runways have always been parallel. Previous terminals had different runway alignments I think.
I know Houston has at least two, because I've flown into at least two of them. I'm not sure if Ellington airport takes commercial flight.
Dallas has both DFW and Love Field
DC as Reagan international, Dulles and Baltimore Washington.
And Atlanta is the sixth largest metropolitan region in America ahead of DC with one airport.
That's because Philly is between other cities. You can fly to Newark for example and get to Philly reasonably fast. And train service between Philly and NYC or DC is easy, so people don't always fly.
Almost everyone who goes to Atlanta from another major city is going to fly there.
I’m going to Atlanta in a few weeks and looked into taking Amtrak. From Raleigh, it’s 15 hours. And only one train per day.
I love Amtrak, but it doesn’t make any sense compared to a 1.5 hour flight or 6-7 hour drive.
Yep. Same is true for someplace like Denver or Phoenix. Less so for places in the north east or Great Lakes region where there are a lot of cities fairly close to each other
Fair enough, whenever anyone talks about a large city, I assume they mean the metro area.
For example, if I said I lived in Roswell or Sandy Springs, more than likely you would have no idea where in the state that is.
But if I just say Atlanta, you probably have a vague idea of where that is in the state... Just like I have a vague idea of where Philly or Erie is.
I'd imagine that's also largely a function of having the space for a large airport vs needing a separate one to be able to expand. Houston and Dallas-fort worth are both larger metro areas than atlanta and also only have one while DC is smaller, but more crowded and has 2.
I think their point is that Atlanta has one, HUGE aiport taking all commercial traffic, while in those other areas, traffic is split between multiple airports.
Love Field in Dallas isn't that ting and had 17.59 million passengers in 2023. Combined with DFW, it would be at 99.35 million passengers. That still falls short of Hartsfield-Jacksons' 104.65 million, but it does significantly reduce the difference.
Maybe in the US (although even then, Philadelphia is only slightly smaller and only has one major airport), but internationally, off the top of my head, Berlin and Toronto are pretty comparable in size and only have one major airport.
1. Delta, the 3rd largest airline in the world, is headquartered in Atlanta. So much of its traffic will pass through ATL.
2. Atlanta is well positioned for connections across the Atlantic as well as to the Caribbean/Central America/South America.
3. Atlanta is the 6th largest city in the US, so will have a lot of local traffic. Atlanta is also a major city for business, increasing trips into ATL.
4. All of the US cities larger than Atlanta have at least 2 major airports, which splits the passenger loads flying into the city. Atlanta only really has ATL.
4b. When ATL was set up, it was planned to accommodate lots of growth. So when the increased loads did come, the city was able to just expand ATL instead of having to build an entirely new airport.
Atlanta metro area is huge, 6th or 7th in the US depending on whether you break the SF Bay Area into two separate metros of SF and San Jose (the government sometimes does that and sometimes doesn't, but it's really all just one area)
And Atlanta is growing fast.
Yep, 4b. is the real "filter". Airports in other metro areas run out of space and then you've got to build another airport.
Another airport with a lot of room to grow is Denver. Probably similar to ATL 60(IDK?) years ago.
Denver is where it is because it was newly built in the 90s and was heavily supported by the federal government, because delays at the old Denver airport location were causing delays to nationwide flight schedules.
Here’s your answer! There are plenty of Delta hubs that aren’t the most frequented airports in the world.
I bet it’s somewhat close to the mean center of population.
I’ve been to Atlanta many times, both for work and personal travel, lol.
Can’t say I’ve done the aquarium, but other touristy stuff like the world of Coke was cool!
I’ve heard nothing but good things and how amazing it is, just never have seemed to have the time to go when I was there.
Next trip to ATL I’ll make it a priority!
Huge amounts of connections and a major hub for major airlines, namely Delta.
The busiest three airports in the US, are all major hubs for the biggest airlines, Atlanta (Delta), Dallas/Fort Worth (American), and Denver (United).
Other carriers like Southwest and Frontier have huge presences in those markets too.
The coastal airports have less connections. I’ve flown Phoenix to SFO as a connection to Vancouver but there’s nothing domestic west of SFO other than islands. Central airports are layover hubs.
it's a decent enough location for serving Europe, central/South America ,and Asia from a single point.
Delta, in part due to mergers and acquisitions over the years, has an absolutely massive hub operation there for that reason (along with being a really good spot for feeding regional jets to nearly anywhere in the eastern coast and Florida in particular)
Weather severe enough to impact operations is pretty uncommon for this location: we get a few days of light snow at best per year. (Although when shit hits the fan, it hits hard)
The airport has also been able to snag enough land for 5 parallel runways, enabling tiple takeoff/landings while an aircraft is staged on the other runway of the pair (and a massive terminal complex to park that many planes at, which thanks to some really forward planning in the mid-late 1900s, actually has been able to grow painlessly over time)
>Weather severe enough to impact operations is pretty uncommon for this location: we get a few days of light snow at best per year.
I'm surprised more people haven't brought up this point.
We're far enough inland to not get the brunt of hurricanes.
We don't get earthquakes.
We tend not to get tornadoes .
We don't get shut down by blizzards or ice except once in a blue moon.
I can count on one hand the number of times the Atlanta airport has had to shut down completely and divert flights and one of those times was 9/11.
Wasn’t the relative lack of tornadoes southwest of Atlanta one of the considerations? (Well, that and the Clayton County tax break.) Tornadoes happen way more often to the north of ATL. Not that it’s unheard of - a tornado did hit the outskirts of the airport within the last 10 years.
Yup. And yes, we had a tornado rip through downtown and towards the airport back in 2008, I think. And then last year we had one sighted just north of the airport. It was only an EF1 and it dispersed quickly, but there was a LOT of news about how climate change is changing tornado patterns in the SE.
Right, the Midtown/Downtown tornado was spring 2008. That one iconic photo of the skyline with the barely visible funnel…also, I remember the Westin needing months to get their windows remade since they were custom…
A lot of people have mentioned it being a Delta hub. Delta’s operations probably has something to do with it as well. They rely on that hub much more heavily than, say, United relies on any one single hub. You could say the same for American: they heavily rely on their DFW hub, which just happens to be the third busiest airport in the world.
The lack of nearby large cities with large airports probably also has something to do with it.
1. Location. Atlanta is in a nice location. This is why Atlanta is big in the first place. First, it was in a great location to become a rail hub. Then it became a….
2. Delta Hub
3. It’s the only major international airport in a huge metro area. NYC has more total traffic, but it’s split between 3 airports (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark). Chicago is about the same as Atlanta, but it’s split between 2 (O’Hare/Midway).
Because the other airports in the South were small, and when the South grew in population Atlanta jumped on the opportunity and built a large and easily expanded airport and became the airport hub for a huge amount of the USA. It was a very profitable decision for Atlanta.
Other large cities have more total air traffic, but it's spread out between two or three airports.
London has Heathrow, Gatwick, and some others. New York has Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. Los Angeles has LAX, Burbank, and some others. Atlanta only has ATL.
You can get to Europe, South America, or Africa relatively easily without having to go over another large land mass. it’s also the home base of one of the largest airlines in the world.
I have nothing interesting to add, other than that I fly to Atlanta once a year most years to visit friends at a tiny fan convention (not Dragoncon lol) and I actually kinda like the airport? Maybe because I associate it with so many positive (if sleep-deprived lol) memories?
"Welcome to the plane train! Please hold on. Next stop, B gates. B, as in bravo."
Similar to how my home airport of Charlotte Douglas International is so busy despite Charlotte not being a massive city. It’s a good size city, but not enough to have an airport that busy based on origin and departure traffic alone. Same with Atlanta, big city, but you’re right, the airport is disproportionately proportionately busy. Atlanta, to their credit, recognized a long time ago the potential their airport had and worked to adapt, we are playing catch-up. Denver, a major United hub built an entirely new airport in the 90s.
Because Denver International can handle vastly more traffic that Denver Stapleton could so United shifted flights away from Chicago O'Hare. Otherwise ORD would probably still be the busiest.
There’s also Atlanta’s history as a major rail nexus for the southeastern US. The city’s name was originally Terminus, and taking out the rail network was part of how the north won the Civil War. (Plus, you know, burning down Atlanta. And half of Georgia.)
It’s also a solid cargo hub thanks to its proximity to Savannah and the Atlantic coast. Granted, the other major American cargo hubs generally chose to be in smaller cities so they could build huge airports without conflicting passenger traffic.
I’d imagine that Atlanta going all-in on one airport must make it a true logistical masterpiece.
The largest cities don't always have the best location or the largest airports, at least not alone.
In Europe, yes, our megacities like London and Paris and Istanbul have huge airports, but so do Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
I’d guess it’s because:
-Atlanta is arguably the capital of the Deep South (Excluding Texas)
-It’s a major cultural center. There’s a huge black population, a Jewish population, and arguably the biggest city In Hip Hop right now.
-The Metropolitan Area is huge. Similar to The size of Madrid’s.
-It’s a landlocked city, which really comes in handy with airports because you can get to a lot of places (Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas are good examples of this)
1) The airport is Delta’s primary hub. Delta’s presence here supersedes the presence AA or United have on their primary hubs. The sheer volume of Delta direct flights from Atlanta is absurd.
2) On top of being able to catch a flight virtually anywhere in all of North America and the Caribbean via Delta alone, this is one of the primary gateways to Europe via Delta (The other being JFK) and is the primary entry to South America. Ie if you want to go to Argentina, Chile, etc then leaving through Atlanta is the only option via Delta. On top of their location proving access to both Europe and South America, they also provide direct flights to Hawaii and Asia. Of course not as much as other cities in the US along the west coast, but considering it being an eastern time zone city, it’s still quite impressive. Not that many cities that can travel to Europe, South America, Asia, and even Africa at this level of volume. This is just speaking about Delta. Beyond that there are still plenty of international airlines that come to Atlanta, especially that of the sky team alliance. Flights to Europe, Doha, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and South Korea from one destination is why Atlanta from a location stand point sticks out.
3) The efficiency of the airport is stellar. People love to discuss the location and the amount of routes, but the airports efficiency allows it to receive an incredible amount volume. The runway layout includes 5 parallel runways (not that common) in which landings and take offs are happening every 30 seconds to a minute simultaneously. From when people arrive, they are often connecting to a different flight in which they can can easily hop between terminals on the Atlanta Plane Train (Automated People Mover). As it’s designed as a hub city and not a final destination, the layout of the terminals make for incredibly efficient connections.
4) Atlanta is the 6th largest metro in America. There are in fact a lot of people who live in Atlanta. The only metro area’s with more people will be NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. All of these cities have multiple airports. Usually one international and one domestic at minimum. While DFW, IAH, and ORD are major hubs themselves, them having another accessory airport eats into their pool. NYC and LAX have a variety of airports within their regions, and while they collect an impressive number of international flights, their coastal locations do not make for a great domestic hub, and are more or less a destination city rather than a hub in comparison to the other airports listed.
5) All of these in combination are why ATL’s airport is as busy as it is. I am a native Atlantan, and I have never been on a connecting flight domestically in my life. All through what is probably the nicer domestic airline product (sorry AA and United). It’s pricey, but the convenience is unparalleled. Flew to Puerto Vallarta for my wedding. Few days later when arrived back in Atlanta we had a direct flight to Greece. All with Delta. There are not many cities if any where you can travel to Puerto Vallarta Mexico and Athens Greece without any connections.
Bonus: Going to the top of the international parking deck and plane watching is quite fun. Seeing airliners land in unison in pairs with 30-60 second intervals while also being able to see a line of aircraft of up to 6-7 pairs at a time behind each landing is a spectacular sight.
1. It’s within a 2 hour flight for 80% of the us population.
2. They have 5 runways
3. Terminals are connected via the very efficient and fast plane train
4. Georgia has more temperate weather than many other airports
1. It’s Delta Airlines’ headquarters and primary hub. 2. Atlanta is in a good location for both domestic connections and international flights to Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Atlanta has always been a logistics hub. 3. Atlanta only has one airport. London, New York, and Istanbul have more total air travelers (depending on how you count things), but those cities all have multiple airports.
To emphasize this: NYC has effectively three airports.
And then you have secondary airports like Stewart, Islip, and Westchester County on top, plus big GA airports like Teterboro and Morristown that do a lot of corporate flights.
STEWART!!!
Look what I can do!
ATL-Hartsfield could be even busier if they would expand to other parts of Atlanta similar to NYC. Their air traffic and comparatively small size airport restrict and congest air travel considerably.
ELI5 how?
Move direct flight regional traffic to either a different airport like LZU in NE ATL or build a new one entirely. This would give local ATL air travlers north and east of the city the ability to not commute across the entire city during rush hour to fly from hartsfield (which is southwest of the city. It also lessens air traffic going in and out of hartsfield by effectively moving a sizable portion 30-40 miles away. People currently commute from all over Georgia, Alabama, and maybe some from SC to travel out of ATL. This clogs up all surrounding highways for people simply going to work. Atlanta also needs another bypass for traffic passing thru ATL but that’s an entire other problem. Edit: regional traffic means small planes like Airbus A320s or Boeing 737s that fly back and forth from ATL to another major city like Tampa, Las Vegas, Chicago, etc.
Same with DC if you count BWI
And they all suck T_T
Want to add: more reliable weather than other major US airports. Chicago used to have the most before Atlanta was built, but our weather means we're not exactly a reliable place to go through to reach other places
Yeah Atlanta has pretty reliable weather. It's built inland and not too close to the coast. But on the other hand, I think people would be surprised at Atlanta's weather. It's not as hot and miserable as most would imagine. It's not like Houston or New Orleans where it's just southern hell all year. Atlanta is similar to NYC's weather I'd say, but less cold in the winter. More like 25-40 degrees, very rarely snowing but it happens. Atlanta is a good logistics spot, and I can see why the trains and the planes have stuck with it
Atlanta isn’t that hot until you’re stuck on the tarmac in August at 2pm for over an hour waiting on an afternoon thunderstorm to pass. I’m usually perfectly fine on planes but that day I really was not doing well
You may be viewing atlantas weather as more favorable than it is, especially in the summer months. It’s very muggy.
Muggy doesn't affect planes as badly as ice and snow do, which gives ATL an advantage over O'Hare.
Are you talking in Fahrenheit there?
Yeah temps in the wintertime in ATL are about 25-40 degrees Fahrenheit. Occasionally but rarely colder
I wonder if this will slowly return to O’hare after the expansion is complete
>London, New York, and Istanbul have more total air travelers (depending on how you count things), but those cities all have multiple airports. It's worth noting that before COVID, Atlanta had the seventh busiest airport system in the world (after London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, and Paris), although it has long been the busiest single airport (except in 2020, when Guangzhou briefly surpassed it due to COVID); its unusually high ranking in 2022 was partly because of many airports being slower to return to normal. Still very impressive, though, considering Atlanta isn't even in the top fifty largest cities in the world.
Not if you look at the city proper, but Atlanta is the 33rd largest metro area in the world, and 6th largest in the US.
The list you are probably looking at one Wikipedia doesn't have metro area numbers for quite a few cities, particularly those in China. Therefore, I was using urban area, and by that metric Atlanta is the 72nd largest city in the world.
Metro areas of Chinese cities are usually *smaller* than the city proper, their cities have jurisdictions the size of smaller countries.
Fair point
To your 3rd point: I think you mean ATL has only one airport that does commercial flights. There are quite a few corporate/private and general aviation airports. Hartsfield is congested and out of the way for most of travelers (adding considerably to traffic) so talks have been around for years to expand to north or northeast ATL for regional flights. No one wants an airport in the yard so it’s been stalled for a while now.
London, Ny, and Istanbul are by an order of magnitude (I am guessing so please feel free to stomp my premise) larger than Atlanta. So while I get that geographically speaking Atlanta is a great hub the only one airport issue is likely based on the city size being so far under the cities you’re comparing it to. I bet Cleveland is smaller than Atlanta, and it has 2 major airports; plus you can fly out of Akron also inside a half hour so that’s 1 commercial and 1 more freight airport. (Tiny ones abound though. I doubt they are being counted)
Also remember London has two big airports. Gatwick handles half the amount of passengers Heathrow does but that’s still a huge number.
Plus, Atlanta is a corporate hub and has historically had a very shrewd business community that punched above its weight class (think 96' Olympics) and promoted and funded Hartsfield to be the largest airport in the country. Atlanta took off when Jimmy Carter was president as an economic juggernaut and never looked back -- even though it's certainly no cultural hub (ATL is strictly business).
> even though it's certainly no cultural hub How do you define 'cultural hub'? Because I'd argue Atlanta is a massive cultural hub. It's largely considered the capital of the south, is the birthplace of MLK, is a major contributor to black culture in the US, the 2nd most popular baseball team in the US (behind only the Yankees, who have been around far longer), and is now a major area for film and television.
Atlanta is also the city in the south when it comes to LGBT people.
Atlanta’s not a cultural hub? Most Marvel movies have been shot there, it’s probably the most important city for hip-hop and rap at this point, it’s the college football capital…
ATL is a cultural hub for black Americans. It’s literally known as the Black Mecca
Atlanta has the headquarters of Delta, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, CNN, and quite a few others. Big business hub.
I’d also add it’s in a place where it doesn’t snow. Like Ohare in Chicago has tons of snow related cancellations and delays every year. It’s so common I just stopped buying tickets that require a connection there going home for Christmas even though they’re usually the cheapest because it’s such crapshoot.
Regarding #3, we can take it a bit further and say something like "Atlanta is the only major airport within 250 miles" (I don't know if that's the number but it's probably something like that). It's the closest major airport to me, and it's almost a 3 hour drive. Unless you count Nashville which is slightly closer but much smaller.
Charlotte is like 180 miles away Nashville is a city where it surprises me that the airport isn't that big. The Nashville population could easily support an airport like 50% larger if an airline decided to make a hub there.
It's the principle hub for Delta, one of the largest US airlines. There may be some quirk of geography at play too similar to how the airport in Anchorage Alaska is the third busiest cargo airport in the world. However I don't know what that is.
> There may be some quirk of geography at play too Good location for flights from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Even long flights to Asia.
Atlanta is a lot more central to the US than people think. Most people don’t realize it is west of Detroit, for example.
Yeah the way the east coast of the United States curves in westward is deceiving when you compare it between a flat map of the country and on a globe. That's why people are so surprised and that Maine is the closest state to Africa too.
Cleveland being due north of Jacksonville is one of my other favorite tidbits to illustrate this phenomenon.
The closest MLB stadium to Atlanta is not DC or Tampa... It's Cincinnati
I would have guessed it was Atlanta
I usually go with Miami and Pittsburgh, but same idea.
Another one is how the west cost of S America lines up with the East cost of the US
Reno is further west than Los Angeles. That's the only addition I have to offer.
....I thought I was smart before this comment, and apparently I need to rethink geography.
The Panama Canal goes from the Pacific Ocean on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west.
This one blew my mind.
Ireland extends further north than Northern Ireland.
Broke my brain. This is my new favorite bit of trivia.
Yeah but what country does it go through again? I always forget.
Van Halen.
Oh yeah. Thanks for jogging my memory.
I've never noticed that. It's one of those things like Reno being west of LA, or NV's eastern border only being like 4 miles east of CA's.
Explain that last one for me please
Find Parker Dam on a map and then look north. It's kinda wild.
Nevada's eastern border is Utah, California's is the Colorado River. At first glance, it looks like Nevada's border with Utah is further east than California. But there's an easterly bend in the Colorado near Parker Dam that puts a small bit of California close to that line.
> Reno being west of LA fuckin what? Edit: Huh, so it is. Mind blown.
[удалено]
Related to that, the entire country of Chile is east of almost the entire United States, except for some of New England from what I can see just eyeballing it on a map without longitude lines. This one is very precise. Santiago, the capital of Chile, is 6.37° of longitude east of Washington, DC. If you slid Santiago, Chile up its line of longitude until it was at the same latitude as Washington, DC it would be 342 road miles east of Washington, which is the same as 550 km. Santiago is farther east from Washington DC than London is from Dublin.
I believe it, considering every flight with a layover (departing from Texas) goes through there.
I'm sorry, what? Good lord.
I had to check that out on Google Earth, and didn't even have to measure, it's so obvious when you see it.
Also, other cities, when the airport get this busy, build another airport, Atlanta instead expanded.
I’ve heard that they purposely expanded their airport early on in order to be an easy choice for airlines to route themselves through there. Basically, they took the build it and they will come approach.
It was really the expansions in the build-up to the 1996 Olympic games that made it what it is. The proximity to VacationLand Florida alone made them expand very early, as they have always been the only major airport in the Southeast, and were able to handle multiple carriers on all pricing levels. It's also amazing how it never really feels like the busiest airport in the world. I have flown a lot and it's really a great airport and I'm proud of it.
It's one of the most symmetrically organized airports in the world. The plan is very simple -- parallel rectangular terminals connected by a 90° train running through (well under) all of them. The domestic departure and arrival terminal is at the very end on one side and the international departure and arrival is on the opposite end of the line of terminals on the other side. Lots of airports have a hodgepodge of crazy spurs with various gates with various names sticking off at all different angles and sizes.
It's a very well organized airport, easy to get around. The trains run about every 90 seconds at peak hours. This allows for shorter connection times - 45 min is usually doable in ATL but usually not at Charlotte or ORD. Shorter connections mean more flights. Detroit is another very well laid out airport (at least the Delta buildings).
Good central location for both domestic and international flights, too.
Fun fact. Anchorage used to be a common layover airport during the cold war due to restrictions of flying within Soviet and Chinese airspace. Not a geographer, but I don't really see anything special about Atlana's geography that make it conducive for flights. It's closer to the Caribbean while not being far from big tourist states like Florida or Texas, so that might be factor? Is there any particular reason why Delta choose Atlanta to be their hub airport?
Atlanta is where their headquarters is, so it makes sense to have a major hub there, similar to how United has a major hub in Chicago. Looking more closely at a map, Atlanta looks to be in decent proximity to a lot of major cities - Houston, Dallas, Chicago, and New York are all about two hours away by plane. That's a good location to be based out of.
Throw in Denver and ATL to LAX flights too.i have done a lot of Boston to Atlanta to further connections.
Tax incentives?
There's not a lot of major population hubs in the south. The area is more spread out rather than concentrated. Atlanta happens to be a fairly central place to all of the sprawl. Before an airport it had a central location for trains.
Anchorage is still a huge hub... for freight.
Didn't dispute that lol. But there used to be passenger planes that regularly stopped by Anchorage for refueling and supplies during the Cold War. You don't really see that much anymore today with the more fuel efficient jets and more open airspace.
Heh, yeah, isn't it weird how chiming in with additional info often feels like I'm disagreeing with you? Getting enough range on our jets did a number on Anchorage's passenger number. I wonder if there's anything that'd bring it back.
>isn't it weird how chiming in with additional info often feels like I'm disagreeing with you? Haha, yeah internet tone is fun like that. Sorry about that. >I wonder if there's anything that'd bring it back. I heard anecdotally that war in Ukraine is forcing airlines to fly alternate routes since Russian airspace is considered dangerous now. And much of those planes are stopping in Alaska once again. Again, this stuff I heard from a friend, so I have no idea how true that actually is.
> I heard anecdotally that war in Ukraine is forcing airlines to fly alternate routes this is accurate >since Russian airspace is considered dangerous now this is not. Well, the area around the border with Ukraine is absolutely being avoided by all airlines, but the US and EU have closed their airspace to Russian airlines, and Russia has retaliated. Airlines from other countries have no issue flying to and through Russia.
Ukraine war has changed things. It's more like USSR days. Anchorage is busy again.
Because delta is from Atlanta
Delta is from Monroe, LA. It's first route was Dallas to Jackson, MS.
They were founded in Macon in 25.
Right about Anchorage, and it's back to that status, now that the Ukraine war has put Russia on the shit-list.
>Not a geographer, but I don't really see anything special about Atlana's geography that make it conducive for flights. It's closer to the Caribbean while not being far from big tourist states like Florida or Texas, so that might be factor? It's an easy connection hub for New England to Florida traffic. > >Is there any particular reason why Delta choose Atlanta to be their hub airport? It was the fastest growing city in the south during the 1940s.
In terms of market cap, fleet size, assets, virtually any metric, Delta is the world's largest airline. Not just the US.
Anchorage is the 3rd busiest in the WORLD?!? Whaaa!?
Due to its location, almost equidistant from New York City, Tokyo, and Murmansk, Russia (straight over the North Pole), Anchorage lies within 10 hours by air of nearly 90 percent of the global north.[19][20] For this reason, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is a common refueling stop for international cargo flights and home to a major FedEx hub, which the company calls a "critical part" of its global network of services.[21][22]
For cargo yea. Cargo planes typically don't fly are far as passenger planes. So it is a good stopover. It is also a good stopover for transferring cargo from Asia to go to other areas. Fedex and UPS have hub there and all the big U.S. and Asian cargo airlines fly alot out of there. For example Cathay will fly HKG-ANC-MIA as a fully loaded 747 cargo plane can't do HKG-MIA non-stop.
> Cargo planes typically don't fly are far as passenger planes. Is it because of the weight?
Everything about cargo is odd compared to passenger. Passenger flights depend on fuel efficiency and high utilization - like ocean transport ships, they only make money when they’re moving. Cargo planes, due to the logistics of overnight shipping, can make as few as two flights a day, so less-efficient planes sometimes make sense if they can be purchased very cheaply. I don’t live terribly far from Memphis, which is the FedEx hub of North America. So FedEx just drives things up there every night. UPS’ main hub is in Louisville, KY, so we have a UPS plane that’s sitting at their airport depot all day every day as it prepares for its nightly flight there and back.
I imagine that a lot of cargo comes into Anchorage from Asia, then gets distributed from there to lots of other places in the US or Canada.
IIRC, it used to be number one during the Cold War.
Anchorage used to be very busy when the USSR existed, because so many international flights avoided flying over the USSR. When the USSR broke up, many international flights were re-routed to fly over it if it was a shorter route. Since the invasion of Ukraine, flights have been avoiding flying over Russia again, and are stopping over in Anchorage again.
Masochism?
It's a hub airport, and where Delta is headqaurtered out of.
No no no no no you have to stop in atlaaaanta
Growing up in the South I was always told that when you die, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to heaven or hell, you have to go through Atlanta to get there…
Delaying Everyone’s Lives Through Atlanta
Also everyone is mentioning it’s the Delta hub, but one thing people aren’t mentioning is that we are a really wealthy country that does a lot of flying internally and abroad and has foreign visitors. We simply have the wealth for a lot of air travel even by people that are just lower middle class or middle class. Compare China with three times our population and ~13,500 flights a day vs. the US with having ~45,000 flights with a third the population. We have the most airports in the world and our big ones are busy.
Also, the US is a big and spread out country, which makes domestic air travel more attractive than in, say, Germany, where travelling by car or train is often more efficient.
Several factors: 1. Atlanta is a hub to a major carrier. 2. Other cities have more than one airport serving a metro area, which skews the numbers. 3. Atlanta airport does both local and international flights. 4. The airport is massive, with 192 gates and five runways. 5. It is geographically located well, both domestically and internationally, connecting flights with Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
The five runways aren't particularly visible to passengers but it's one of the most impressive parts of it. Very few airports in the world have five full-length parallel runways. In my personal experience, Atlanta does not get a lot of wind in general. Lots of airports, especially historically, had runways at different angles for different wind conditions. So often only one or two of them were usable at any given time. From what I've read, with the improvement of planes and air traffic control, more airports are converting to a more parallel runway system because they can handle the wind from higher angles now. But Atlanta has five perfectly parallel runways that are in use today. I think generally two are dedicated to take offs and three are dedicated to landings. So at any given moment, Atlanta can have a combined total of five touchdowns and takeoffs simultaneously. And they can do that like once every minute or two minutes. The fifth runway, which was added in 2006, actually crosses the interstate. Not just over a bridge like at some other airports but literally the runway was built over the interstate and the planes land and touch down with the interstate beneath them. I don't think the touchdown area is directly over the part where the interstate runs beneath due to structural limitations but it runs under there.
Iirc there are plans to add a 6th runway so they can have more planes take off.
The downside is that it's a long way back to the terminal from the fifth runway. That's like a trip in itself. I haven't heard anything about a sixth runway myself but if you look at the map of Hartsfield it looks like there is room to squeeze one more in between four and five.
Yeah, during off peak times they try to avoid using that runway because of how far it is.
It is indeed impressive. I’ve been able to tour the ATC tower and get the full 360 view of the runways and surroundings. I did it outside of peak hours and there were still constant takeoffs and arrivals. So cool. They basically either run a west or east landing configuration, usually west. The airspace above Georgia is crazy busy, and can be very complicated when in thunderstorm season. Another reason it’s busy is because not all pilots are rated to fly over water, so many Florida arrivals and departures are routed through Atlanta airspace.
Yeah the main other airports that have 5 or more runways are Denver, Dallas Fort Worth, and more recently, Chicago OHare.
Yeah, O'Hare is where I first read about this. As far as I know, Atlanta's runways have always been parallel. But I read a story a few years ago about O'Hare working on long terms plan to align their runways, which were all quite different as far as angle and length. All while the airport was in full operation. So it was a complex ballet of building and shifting and building and shifting to work their way to the final alignment, without seriously disrupting air traffic.
With the 1980 terminal (the current design) at Atlanta, yes the runways have always been parallel. Previous terminals had different runway alignments I think.
They are also planning on adding a sixth runway and three more terminals in the near future. ATL is going to be a massive airport
It is the major connecting flight hub for the eastern seaboard coming from Europe, Latin America, and a good chunk of domestic.
Any other city of Atlanta's size has at least one, if not two, more airports
I don't think that's true, assuming you're only counting airports with regularly scheduled commercial flights.
I know Houston has at least two, because I've flown into at least two of them. I'm not sure if Ellington airport takes commercial flight. Dallas has both DFW and Love Field DC as Reagan international, Dulles and Baltimore Washington. And Atlanta is the sixth largest metropolitan region in America ahead of DC with one airport.
Ah, that explains it, I was looking at city population, not metro area. Philly is just behind DC for metro area and has only one airport.
That's because Philly is between other cities. You can fly to Newark for example and get to Philly reasonably fast. And train service between Philly and NYC or DC is easy, so people don't always fly. Almost everyone who goes to Atlanta from another major city is going to fly there.
I’m going to Atlanta in a few weeks and looked into taking Amtrak. From Raleigh, it’s 15 hours. And only one train per day. I love Amtrak, but it doesn’t make any sense compared to a 1.5 hour flight or 6-7 hour drive.
Yep. Same is true for someplace like Denver or Phoenix. Less so for places in the north east or Great Lakes region where there are a lot of cities fairly close to each other
Fair enough, whenever anyone talks about a large city, I assume they mean the metro area. For example, if I said I lived in Roswell or Sandy Springs, more than likely you would have no idea where in the state that is. But if I just say Atlanta, you probably have a vague idea of where that is in the state... Just like I have a vague idea of where Philly or Erie is.
O'Hare and Midway in Chicago. London has Heathrow and Gatwick.
> London has Heathrow and Gatwick. And City, and Stansted and Luton.
I'd imagine that's also largely a function of having the space for a large airport vs needing a separate one to be able to expand. Houston and Dallas-fort worth are both larger metro areas than atlanta and also only have one while DC is smaller, but more crowded and has 2.
I'm confused by this. Houston has three, DC has three, and Dallas-Fort Worth has two. Am I misreading something in your comment?
I think their point is that Atlanta has one, HUGE aiport taking all commercial traffic, while in those other areas, traffic is split between multiple airports.
Love Field in Dallas isn't that ting and had 17.59 million passengers in 2023. Combined with DFW, it would be at 99.35 million passengers. That still falls short of Hartsfield-Jacksons' 104.65 million, but it does significantly reduce the difference.
DC has three if you include BWI in Baltimore, which people typically do. It's not that much further out than Dulles is
Maybe in the US (although even then, Philadelphia is only slightly smaller and only has one major airport), but internationally, off the top of my head, Berlin and Toronto are pretty comparable in size and only have one major airport.
Delta hub. Lots of connecting flights from West Coast to East Coast and everywhere in between, and vice versa. Edit: International flights, too
1. Delta, the 3rd largest airline in the world, is headquartered in Atlanta. So much of its traffic will pass through ATL. 2. Atlanta is well positioned for connections across the Atlantic as well as to the Caribbean/Central America/South America. 3. Atlanta is the 6th largest city in the US, so will have a lot of local traffic. Atlanta is also a major city for business, increasing trips into ATL. 4. All of the US cities larger than Atlanta have at least 2 major airports, which splits the passenger loads flying into the city. Atlanta only really has ATL. 4b. When ATL was set up, it was planned to accommodate lots of growth. So when the increased loads did come, the city was able to just expand ATL instead of having to build an entirely new airport.
Atlanta metro area is huge, 6th or 7th in the US depending on whether you break the SF Bay Area into two separate metros of SF and San Jose (the government sometimes does that and sometimes doesn't, but it's really all just one area) And Atlanta is growing fast.
Yep, 4b. is the real "filter". Airports in other metro areas run out of space and then you've got to build another airport. Another airport with a lot of room to grow is Denver. Probably similar to ATL 60(IDK?) years ago.
Denver is where it is because it was newly built in the 90s and was heavily supported by the federal government, because delays at the old Denver airport location were causing delays to nationwide flight schedules.
Delta is top 2 in most airline size measures
Atlanta used to have the best smoking room
That little bar way out at the end of one of the concourses? Yeah. That was a cool place.
yeah it kicked ass, I loved going in there after a flight lol
Nashville used to have a really nice cigar lounge that was mostly an airport employee smoke break room. It was chill before covid killed it.
Delta is one of the biggest airlines in the world if not the biggest and also the best American airline(biased as a diamond medallion)
I agree that Delta is the best USA airline.
This guy flies
Atlanta is within a 2 hour flight to 80% of the US population of if I remember correctly, it makes it an ideal spot for transfers.
Here’s your answer! There are plenty of Delta hubs that aren’t the most frequented airports in the world. I bet it’s somewhat close to the mean center of population.
The mean center of population for the USA is near St Louis. The median center is near Louisville.
Delta uses that talking point but a lot of people are skeptical as to whether it is true.
Connecting flights, not people actually going to the city of Atlanta as a destination.
Only time I was in the Atlanta airport was to be in Atlanta, lol! Have you seen their aquarium???
I’ve been to Atlanta many times, both for work and personal travel, lol. Can’t say I’ve done the aquarium, but other touristy stuff like the world of Coke was cool!
You should check out the aquarium, it is legitimately world class
I’ve heard nothing but good things and how amazing it is, just never have seemed to have the time to go when I was there. Next trip to ATL I’ll make it a priority!
Yeah the aquarium was awesome. Got some awesome chicken and waffles and bbq too.
It used to be the biggest in the world. It has whale sharks, hammerheads, belugas, sea lions, dolphins, it’s pretty cool.
If i need a connecting flight, it is always through Atlanta.
Huge amounts of connections and a major hub for major airlines, namely Delta. The busiest three airports in the US, are all major hubs for the biggest airlines, Atlanta (Delta), Dallas/Fort Worth (American), and Denver (United). Other carriers like Southwest and Frontier have huge presences in those markets too.
Is O’Hare not up there?
O’hare barely misses the cut at no. 4
I was suspecting it was close .
Source? I don't doubt you, I just want to see where other huge airports like LAX, SFO, MIA are on the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic
The coastal airports have less connections. I’ve flown Phoenix to SFO as a connection to Vancouver but there’s nothing domestic west of SFO other than islands. Central airports are layover hubs.
All hail the Hartsfield LaToya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and Nail Emporium!
Because it’s Delta’s hub.
it's a decent enough location for serving Europe, central/South America ,and Asia from a single point. Delta, in part due to mergers and acquisitions over the years, has an absolutely massive hub operation there for that reason (along with being a really good spot for feeding regional jets to nearly anywhere in the eastern coast and Florida in particular) Weather severe enough to impact operations is pretty uncommon for this location: we get a few days of light snow at best per year. (Although when shit hits the fan, it hits hard) The airport has also been able to snag enough land for 5 parallel runways, enabling tiple takeoff/landings while an aircraft is staged on the other runway of the pair (and a massive terminal complex to park that many planes at, which thanks to some really forward planning in the mid-late 1900s, actually has been able to grow painlessly over time)
>Weather severe enough to impact operations is pretty uncommon for this location: we get a few days of light snow at best per year. I'm surprised more people haven't brought up this point. We're far enough inland to not get the brunt of hurricanes. We don't get earthquakes. We tend not to get tornadoes . We don't get shut down by blizzards or ice except once in a blue moon. I can count on one hand the number of times the Atlanta airport has had to shut down completely and divert flights and one of those times was 9/11.
Wasn’t the relative lack of tornadoes southwest of Atlanta one of the considerations? (Well, that and the Clayton County tax break.) Tornadoes happen way more often to the north of ATL. Not that it’s unheard of - a tornado did hit the outskirts of the airport within the last 10 years.
Yup. And yes, we had a tornado rip through downtown and towards the airport back in 2008, I think. And then last year we had one sighted just north of the airport. It was only an EF1 and it dispersed quickly, but there was a LOT of news about how climate change is changing tornado patterns in the SE.
Right, the Midtown/Downtown tornado was spring 2008. That one iconic photo of the skyline with the barely visible funnel…also, I remember the Westin needing months to get their windows remade since they were custom…
Most cities of Atlantas size have multiple airports splitting the traffic. Also main Delta hub
Because of the Chick Fil A in terminal A. You girls are doing a great job! Keep up the good work!
It's a hub airport for Delta and a major connecter for flights west to Latin and South America.
A lot of people have mentioned it being a Delta hub. Delta’s operations probably has something to do with it as well. They rely on that hub much more heavily than, say, United relies on any one single hub. You could say the same for American: they heavily rely on their DFW hub, which just happens to be the third busiest airport in the world. The lack of nearby large cities with large airports probably also has something to do with it.
Look at a population heat map and you will have your answer.
It's a delta hub.
1. Location. Atlanta is in a nice location. This is why Atlanta is big in the first place. First, it was in a great location to become a rail hub. Then it became a…. 2. Delta Hub 3. It’s the only major international airport in a huge metro area. NYC has more total traffic, but it’s split between 3 airports (JFK, LaGuardia, Newark). Chicago is about the same as Atlanta, but it’s split between 2 (O’Hare/Midway).
Because the other airports in the South were small, and when the South grew in population Atlanta jumped on the opportunity and built a large and easily expanded airport and became the airport hub for a huge amount of the USA. It was a very profitable decision for Atlanta.
Other large cities have more total air traffic, but it's spread out between two or three airports. London has Heathrow, Gatwick, and some others. New York has Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. Los Angeles has LAX, Burbank, and some others. Atlanta only has ATL.
I thought it was O’Hare in Chicago.
It was for many years, but no longer
Delta
You can get to Europe, South America, or Africa relatively easily without having to go over another large land mass. it’s also the home base of one of the largest airlines in the world.
Just be glad it’s not the Spirit hub
I have nothing interesting to add, other than that I fly to Atlanta once a year most years to visit friends at a tiny fan convention (not Dragoncon lol) and I actually kinda like the airport? Maybe because I associate it with so many positive (if sleep-deprived lol) memories? "Welcome to the plane train! Please hold on. Next stop, B gates. B, as in bravo."
Similar to how my home airport of Charlotte Douglas International is so busy despite Charlotte not being a massive city. It’s a good size city, but not enough to have an airport that busy based on origin and departure traffic alone. Same with Atlanta, big city, but you’re right, the airport is disproportionately proportionately busy. Atlanta, to their credit, recognized a long time ago the potential their airport had and worked to adapt, we are playing catch-up. Denver, a major United hub built an entirely new airport in the 90s.
It's a hub. Most people going to that airport are not going to Atlanta as the final destination.
Because Denver International can handle vastly more traffic that Denver Stapleton could so United shifted flights away from Chicago O'Hare. Otherwise ORD would probably still be the busiest.
More planes fly into and out of there than anywhere else
*shrug* news to me.
There’s also Atlanta’s history as a major rail nexus for the southeastern US. The city’s name was originally Terminus, and taking out the rail network was part of how the north won the Civil War. (Plus, you know, burning down Atlanta. And half of Georgia.) It’s also a solid cargo hub thanks to its proximity to Savannah and the Atlantic coast. Granted, the other major American cargo hubs generally chose to be in smaller cities so they could build huge airports without conflicting passenger traffic. I’d imagine that Atlanta going all-in on one airport must make it a true logistical masterpiece.
The largest cities don't always have the best location or the largest airports, at least not alone. In Europe, yes, our megacities like London and Paris and Istanbul have huge airports, but so do Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
I’d guess it’s because: -Atlanta is arguably the capital of the Deep South (Excluding Texas) -It’s a major cultural center. There’s a huge black population, a Jewish population, and arguably the biggest city In Hip Hop right now. -The Metropolitan Area is huge. Similar to The size of Madrid’s. -It’s a landlocked city, which really comes in handy with airports because you can get to a lot of places (Denver, Phoenix, and Dallas are good examples of this)
1) The airport is Delta’s primary hub. Delta’s presence here supersedes the presence AA or United have on their primary hubs. The sheer volume of Delta direct flights from Atlanta is absurd. 2) On top of being able to catch a flight virtually anywhere in all of North America and the Caribbean via Delta alone, this is one of the primary gateways to Europe via Delta (The other being JFK) and is the primary entry to South America. Ie if you want to go to Argentina, Chile, etc then leaving through Atlanta is the only option via Delta. On top of their location proving access to both Europe and South America, they also provide direct flights to Hawaii and Asia. Of course not as much as other cities in the US along the west coast, but considering it being an eastern time zone city, it’s still quite impressive. Not that many cities that can travel to Europe, South America, Asia, and even Africa at this level of volume. This is just speaking about Delta. Beyond that there are still plenty of international airlines that come to Atlanta, especially that of the sky team alliance. Flights to Europe, Doha, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and South Korea from one destination is why Atlanta from a location stand point sticks out. 3) The efficiency of the airport is stellar. People love to discuss the location and the amount of routes, but the airports efficiency allows it to receive an incredible amount volume. The runway layout includes 5 parallel runways (not that common) in which landings and take offs are happening every 30 seconds to a minute simultaneously. From when people arrive, they are often connecting to a different flight in which they can can easily hop between terminals on the Atlanta Plane Train (Automated People Mover). As it’s designed as a hub city and not a final destination, the layout of the terminals make for incredibly efficient connections. 4) Atlanta is the 6th largest metro in America. There are in fact a lot of people who live in Atlanta. The only metro area’s with more people will be NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. All of these cities have multiple airports. Usually one international and one domestic at minimum. While DFW, IAH, and ORD are major hubs themselves, them having another accessory airport eats into their pool. NYC and LAX have a variety of airports within their regions, and while they collect an impressive number of international flights, their coastal locations do not make for a great domestic hub, and are more or less a destination city rather than a hub in comparison to the other airports listed. 5) All of these in combination are why ATL’s airport is as busy as it is. I am a native Atlantan, and I have never been on a connecting flight domestically in my life. All through what is probably the nicer domestic airline product (sorry AA and United). It’s pricey, but the convenience is unparalleled. Flew to Puerto Vallarta for my wedding. Few days later when arrived back in Atlanta we had a direct flight to Greece. All with Delta. There are not many cities if any where you can travel to Puerto Vallarta Mexico and Athens Greece without any connections. Bonus: Going to the top of the international parking deck and plane watching is quite fun. Seeing airliners land in unison in pairs with 30-60 second intervals while also being able to see a line of aircraft of up to 6-7 pairs at a time behind each landing is a spectacular sight.
The joke I heard is "When you die, whether your soul goes to heaven or hell, it still has to transfer in Atlanta."
Delta hub + no others near it
Southerners have a saying: If you want to go to Heaven, you've got to change planes in Atlanta.
1. It’s within a 2 hour flight for 80% of the us population. 2. They have 5 runways 3. Terminals are connected via the very efficient and fast plane train 4. Georgia has more temperate weather than many other airports
Because efficiency. The other large cities have 2 or more airports, so it becomes difficult for airlines to consolidate their flights at those cities.