As Atlanta prepares to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Fulton County is modernizing its executive airport to meet increased demand and its competition with nearby facilities like Peachtree-DeKalb Airport and Cobb County International Airport Port at McCollum Field.
The Fulton County Executive Airport sits on 900 acres. In the near term, the airport is planning to have more hangars and a new fire station. Also in the works within two years, is a runway extension to accommodate international flights and U.S. Customs facility.
The airport, which is also known as Charlie Brown Field, primarily serves corporate jet travel. The airport recorded 78,000 operations in the past year — nearly 90 percent of which were corporate business flights, said David Clark, director of Fulton County Public Works.
During the World Cup, the airport expects 250 operations per day for the event. That would not include regular business traffic, which is about 180 operations per business day.
Travelers are often executives conducting business in the metro area for the day. Their corporations, such as Home Depot, Norfolk Southern and the Arthur M. Blank Family Office, have leased hangars, Clark added.
To accommodate growing demand, the airport plans to expand the number of hangars from 19 to 25 or 27, allowing more private corporations to park their jets on-site. Currently, after landing, overflow planes can lease hangars and be serviced by fixed base operators, such as Signature Aviation Atlanta and Hill Aircraft, but Fulton County officials want to retain those visitors by increasing capacity and enhancing infrastructure.
Improvements include closing its shorter runway of 3,900 feet, which was previously used for turboprop planes, Clark said, to allow space for additional hangars.
Closing the runway will cost nearly $1 million and require approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, Clark added. Now the airport has to show how the runway will be closed.
“The main thing the FAA is looking at is how do we mark and light [the space] so a plane doesn’t mistake this for the main runway,” Clark said.
The airport offices are located inside a former fire station building that was decommissioned about 10 years ago. Renovations include converting half of the building into a new fire station for firefighters to respond to emergencies only at the airport.
“Most hangar tenants have a requirement in their insurance policies that their aircraft must be housed at an airport that has on-sight firefighting,” Clark said.
In April, Fulton plans to award the fire station renovation to a winning contractor through a request for proposals that was issued in January.
The project work is estimated to cost $3 million.
Fulton is planning to extend the main runway from 5,900 feet to 7,000 feet within about two years.
The $40 million upgrade would allow many private jets to travel from the executive airport to Europe without needing to stop at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for refueling. To support international travel, the county is also working to establish an on-site U.S. Customs facility.
The Fulton County airport opened in 1949 as a dirt runway. It was paved in the early 1950s, and a terminal was built in 1952.
“The name Charlie Brown Field was coined in 1960 to honor Commissioner Charlie Brown, who was influential in the growth of the airport,” a statement from the airport master plan reads.
The name was updated to Fulton County Executive Airport in 2019 “to reflect its identity as the preferred airport of choice for corporate aviation,” the master plan states.
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