Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Delta dominates ATL and doesn't want too much expansion that would allow others to compete. So Atlanta pays among the highest fares in the nation. The competition in Dallas leads to lower fares.
Not on routes where Delta has to compete with Spirit and Frontier. As much as people complain about those 2, they keep Delta and SW in check on fares to certain markets. I remember when it used to be like $150 RT to go to Pensacola and once Airtran left, the entire Pan handle is now always $300RT+. Not uncommon to get Miami for under $100 RT now either, while Ft Myers is sky high since Delta and SW doesnt have to compete with the ULCC.
Why do people always say Atlanta Airport is a mess to navigate through.... I really think that`s haters wanting the lie to gain momentum. I`ve flown both domestic and internationally numerous times, and it`s very easy. Airports have to keep up and Airports are literally turning into malls with gates. The only delay is security but if your ass is late, that`s your fault!
I think there's an argument to be made that a single ATL airport makes it a more effective hub operation than if a secondary airport existed.
A secondary airport would leave some travelers with a built-in reason not to be loyal to the hub airline. Dallas and Houston, for instance, have lots of Southwest fanatics. In Atlanta, Delta has more of an advantage because nobody can offer a differentiated product. There are what...one maybe two?...routes not flown by a Skyteam airline out of Atlanta?
That advantage means it's more difficult to compete out of Atlanta, and Delta can more thoroughly trounce its competition on ALL routes to or from ATL.
Meanwhile, look at Dallas, Houston, Miami, DC, New York. Delta dominates the Atlanta traffic to/from those markets, generally having about as many flights as all the competitors combined, even though there are massive competing hubs on the other end. Splitting Atlanta's demand by offering a major second airport would REALLY disrupt that dominance over the market, and might make a lot of this connecting service Delta has less viable.
On the flip side, allowing someone else to offer a differentiated product would create more competition and lower fares, which would stimulate some origin and destination traffic. The question is whether that would reduce Delta's profitability enough to cause them to shift some flights elsewhere.
Why do people always say Atlanta Airport is a mess to navigate through.... I really think that`s haters wanting the lie to gain momentum. I`ve flown both domestic and internationally numerous times, and it`s very easy. Airports have to keep up and Airports are literally turning into malls with gates. The only delay is security but if your ass is late, that`s your fault!
It's not necessarily a mess to navigate, but it's big as hell and if you have a quick connecting flight, hauling tail from one terminal to another is NOT anyone's idea of a fun time.
There are a few things being missed in the ideas that we must stick with one airport or it will effect the hub operations.
First and foremost, always remember airports aren't built overnight (new or addition).
Most of the planning we discuss are a part of master plans designed to handle traffic for the hub and our region 30-40 years out. The design, financing, and construction is usually done a 20-40 year timeline. Even as we make changes as construction time draws near that construction process is still a 5-10 year thing. These are large-scale, but also long-term investments we are discussing. The reason this is important is you have to factor in passenger traffic growth into our 30 plan. (ie. as we plan for the future we aren't necessarily removing passengers from ATL, as much as affecting where long-term growth of passengers go next)
Just 15 years ago ATL had 76m annual passengers and now we are at 104m and that is 15 years that included the Great Recession. That is going to keep growing. A little less than 2/3 of that are connecting passengers, the rest O&D. So the problem is we shouldn't be concerned that 1-3 commuter airports across our region attracting 5m-15m passengers (collectively) over a 30 year plan is going to collapse what ATL is now. Truth is, we will grow by more than that... both as a hub and our own O&D needs. So our hub's strength is not at risk over this. ATL's ability to keep attracting the same number of O&D passengers (or more) will not go away.
However, this would likely create more competition for Delta for the O&D Atlanta traffic as it grows in the future.
There is another oddity to this analysis. Pricing affects the number of customers and can attract more travel heavy businesses and conventions to the area as O&D travel prices decrease. So if this really lets in more competition to the market and lowers prices, we will have more O&D passengers overall. It won't be one-for-one the number of potential passengers it pulls away from ATL in the year 2038, but it can be a sizable number.
A few other random quips worth noting on various subjects:
Southwest in Atlanta has 124 flights/day
Southwest in Dallas has 180 flights/day
Airtran, before being bought by Southwest, had 171 flights/day out of Atlanta.
(admittedly using Wiki for easy access. This information has likely changed and fluctuates, but still good for comparative purposes)
I mention this for a few various reasons. I don't think Southwest having Love Field, alone is making Dallas more competitive. We can get enough flights into ATL to mimic DFW+DAL. The DFW+DAL combo still has some competitive issues of their own, given how much they have allowed Southwest to dominate DAL. Delta has fought to keep their flights to DAL, which I enjoy and want them to keep/grow. No matter what decisions we make, we have to be careful if we want to maintain competition.
One advantage to multiple commuter airports is they don't need to be operated by ATL or the COA. That takes how we handle competitive gate access at new airports off the table in negotiations with Delta's-ATL contract off the table.
The issue has more to do with other non-hub/focus city airlines + the advantages of product differentiation Testa discussed. It has gotten very costly for airlines to enter the market or easily grow. Southwest bought out AirTran in a large part just to get the gate access into ATL.
Other issues to discuss are what is currently being seen at ATL. ATL can still expand and has room, but it is also a constrained airport. It isn't like Denver outside the edge of town surrounded by massive amounts of undeveloped land. ATL can grow, but the price per gate will start to inch up with each additional gate. That is partly what these recent changes with a T-Gate additions are about. They have figured a way to squeeze a few more gates in cheaper, but the actual long-term plans involve a large amount of facility relocation, earth/foundation-moving, and is actually much more expensive per gate in the long-run.
I still want those improvements to happen, btw. I am a bit concerned with costs of how much we will need to grow in 40 years, 60 years, 100 years, etc... as we develop land and potentially prevent the development of additional airports. Atlanta is going to be a region of 8 million, 10 million, 12 million, etc... It is just a matter of how many years pass by.
Also, I just want to reiterate something I said earlier. Love and Midway are left behind airports when those cities rebuilt new airports. We re-used our existing airport when we rebuilt. We likely won't ever have or need airports the sizes of those 2 and they would be costly to build, but a couple of 5 million passengers/year commuter airports won't be. They also won't be as high-impact to traffic (with proper transportation improvements) to the areas they are placed as some people make it seem. But they can be high-impact to economic development and flight costs.
Los Angeles has different types of examples to look at. They have 4 airports with commercial operations outside LAX. They are of difference sizes and histories and they produce a much more limited impact to their local areas, than what we experience today with ATL or even Midway in Chicago. The commuter airports in LA has one airport attracting 2M passengers, 2 airports attracting 4M passengers, and one attracts just over 10M passengers. They are often built on a far smaller footprint and don't require the amount of high-traffic road connections the largest airports require.
It's not necessarily a mess to navigate, but it's big as hell and if you have a quick connecting flight, hauling tail from one terminal to another is NOT anyone's idea of a fun time.
I don't agree, but when I hear many people complaining in passing I usually draw attention to one thing...
People aren't complaining that ATL is messy, just that it's large... in which case... guilty as charged.
ATL is laid out the best it can be. In its simplicty it is the most cost-efficient, manages high volumes, and it has the easiest/quickest furthest gate to furthest gate access of the largest airports. It is probably one of the single-most modeled airports, in-part, for how many of the world's largest are looking to re-structure future gate/concourse growth.
One thing I find interesting about airport design is usually the airport must pick a direction between benefiting Hub-connections vs. O&D traffic. ATL is a classic example of one designing for hub-connections first.
DFW would be an example of designing more for the benefit of O&D traffic first. DFW keeps more curbside access and very quick gate to curb access across multiple/spread-out terminals. ATL has centralized terminals increasing curb-to-gate distance, but decreases the average gate-to-gate connection distances.
Although, it is worth noting that our centralized screening areas are more efficient and our ground transportation options are second to none being easily massed into a central terminal. I do see some various opinions about ATL that usually are formed over this choice in design.
Q:- How big is International Passenger Traffic at Atlanta Airport ?
This is a crucial factor in design and expansion of the Airport.
Unlike Airports like Miami, JFK, Chicago, San Francisco- Atlanta receive fewer international flights and passengers. While other Airports invest more in international flights customs, immigration, security facilities-Atlanta is spared of that. They have more freedom to expand in their Domestic passenger transit facilities as a major hub for Delta.
A small bit misleading...
Atlanta has very close to the same amount of international passengers and flights as Chicago and San Francisco. ATL had 11.5 million international passengers in 2017.
ORD had 12.4m. SFO had 12.3m. EWR and IAH also share numbers very similar to ORD, SFO, and ATL.
Only JFK, MIA, and LAX greatly surpass the rest of the pack. MIA had 26.3m. JFK had 32.4m. LAX had 22.8m.
While DFW, FLL, Philiedelphia, Orlando, SeaTac, Dulles, and Logan trail behind these two groups.
Atlanta already has invested a great deal in terms of international customs, immigration and security facilities. We are probably a step ahead, not behind, of SFO and ORD in terms of facilities after having opened a new international terminal in 2012. It is already connected to our core secured side transit corridor for domestic connections and always has been.
Delta Air Lines’ newest aircraft type – the Airbus A220 – rolled out of a Quebec paint shop with a Delta paint scheme for the first time Thursday evening.
I don't agree, but when I hear many people complaining in passing I usually draw attention to one thing...
People aren't complaining that ATL is messy, just that it's large... in which case... guilty as charged.
ATL is laid out the best it can be. In its simplicty it is the most cost-efficient, manages high volumes, and it has the easiest/quickest furthest gate to furthest gate access of the largest airports. It is probably one of the single-most modeled airports, in-part, for how many of the world's largest are looking to re-structure future gate/concourse growth.
One thing I find interesting about airport design is usually the airport must pick a direction between benefiting Hub-connections vs. O&D traffic. ATL is a classic example of one designing for hub-connections first.
DFW would be an example of designing more for the benefit of O&D traffic first. DFW keeps more curbside access and very quick gate to curb access across multiple/spread-out terminals. ATL has centralized terminals increasing curb-to-gate distance, but decreases the average gate-to-gate connection distances.
Although, it is worth noting that our centralized screening areas are more efficient and our ground transportation options are second to none being easily massed into a central terminal. I do see some various opinions about ATL that usually are formed over this choice in design.
DFW and ATL are designed very differently. DFW is a real pain if you connect in a different terminal. While screening may not be as efficient, being split makes the lines seem quicker (whether they are or not).
HJAIA to put out RFP for 65 acre Air Cargo P3 development.
Quote:
"It's much better to have somebody [a cargo company] build something exactly how they want it, rather than building something now. We waited three years to lease the last building. That's not the way it should be moving forward. We think the cargo operators are much better at designing what they need," Selden said.
The airport handles almost 700,000 tons of cargo annually.
Selden said the project would create 200,000 to 300,00 square feet of space for cargo operations, and would therefore increase the airport's cargo capacity.
He said the airport's cargo capacity goal is to hit 1 million tons annually, but that it will take awhile to reach that number.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Air Cargo Expansion
