By Guest Columnist BEN DECOSTA, former aviation general manager of ATL, 1998-2010
By a 5 to 4 vote, a Senate study committee proposed a hostile takeover of the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL) from those who built it over the past 40 years as the premier magnet for global businesses, as a $60 billion regional economic engine and as the door for millions of travelers from around the world to visit Atlanta and America.
As state lawmakers consider taking over Atlanta’s airport, Delta Air Lines, Inc. on Wednesday received a top credit rating from Moody’s Investors Service that builds on a recent rating that said one of Delta’s key credit strengths is the lower costs of doing business at Atlanta’s airport.
“We’ve had the world’s busiest and most efficient airport for many years running, and this notion that the state can somehow run it better is presumptuous,” said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
The Atlanta Jazz Festival has prevailed in what’s become an annual ritual of tapping the airport car rental tax to help pay for the event. This year, the festival is to receive up to $350,000, a sum that’s up by $100,000 from last year’s appropriation, following a vote Monday by the Atlanta City Council.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has hired a new chief lobbyist for the city, who got her lobbying badge for the city on Wednesday as Atlanta prepares to deal with issues including a proposed state take-over of the management of the city’s airport.
The Georgia Legislature starts its annual session with a new governor and a lot of new members. The city of Atlanta wants a couple of adjustments to state law, but that’s not all of interest to the city and its residents.
Two men arrested separately at Atlanta’s airport have been convicted of federal charges of traveling to Atlanta to have sex with a minor child. The incidents show that even as airport officials focus on spotting victims of the sex trade who travel through the airport, predators pass through it, as well.
An interfaith chapel at the world’s busiest passenger airport is soon to be named in honor of a Civil Rights leader who has received the highest honor awarded a woman in Africa, and who’s been recognized for her work in the Rev. Martin Luther King’s Chicago movement and a lifetime of achievements in ministry and academia.
Atlanta never stops crowing about having the world’s busiest airport — and it hasn’t been interested in a second one. But that “second airport” idea turned up several times in a state Capitol hearing called by legislators who are looking at the feasibility of a state takeover of Hartsfield-Jackson’s management.
As metro Atlanta is poised for a mass transit Renaissance, boosters for the sprawling, “southern crescent” sub-region known as Aerotropolis want to ensure that those who live, work, and play near the world’s busiest airport are ahead of the curve and innovating for the future.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday said the city has narrowed its search for an airport general manager to five finalists.
In a brief interview with a couple of reporters after speaking to the Rotary Club of Atlanta, Bottoms said she would not disclose the names of those finalists because “these people are all employed.”
Three measures approved by the state Legislature this year are triggering concerns among members of the Atlanta City Council – a study committee to evaluate the state takeover of Atlanta’s airport; a call for Atlanta to permanently close a portion of Mitchell Street adjacent to the Capitol; and carving out a piece of Stockbridge to create a City of Eagle’s Landing.
Atlanta’s airport is built on the site of a former car racetrack. The airport again has a link to fast cars – a cargo company that’s poised to sign a five-year airport lease is a sponsor of the global effort to build a car that is to smash the 1,000 mph land speed barrier.
As early as next week, the state Senate will see a proposal to put the state in charge of the Atlanta-run Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Even before it’s been filed, it’s sparked opposition from Atlanta lawmakers.
Against the backdrop of recently reported cyberattacks involving the National Security Agency, stealing mail may seem passé. But the take was more than $1.7 in a mail theft scheme federal authorities dismantled at Atlanta’s airport.
There’s a move afoot to knit the uppermost Flint and its headwater channels into a network of parks and trails, turning areas around the airport into green destinations.
Atlanta proposes to lease 88 retail locations at the city’s airport across a total of about 70,000 square feet. The plan is for current members of the Atlanta City Council to approve recommendations of an evaluation committee, and for Mayor Kasim Reed to execute the contracts.
Proposed legislation to regulate taxies and ride-hailing companies at Atlanta’s airport is so racially charged, and politically laden, that a committee of the Atlanta City Council punted the measure to the full council for it to consider Monday.
Atlanta’s airport managers propose to extend a passenger fee that is due to expire in 2027. The action occurs as the Federal Aviation Authority is accepting comments on proposed changes to the allowed uses of the fee.
The backlog of requests for proposals at Atlanta’s airport includes nine RFPs for food and beverage concessions, including four that date to October 2015. An RFP for a firm to audit concessionaires, to ensure the airport collects all the money it’s due, remains open though it was first issued in September 2015, city records show.
