OMG ATL WTF?
April 14, 2008 9:00 PM Subscribe
After the Delta/Northwest merger agreement, it piqued my interest. I read about the industry which took me to Wikipedia and then some. Atlanta is the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic and is only the 65th largest metropolitan area in the world [PDF] and only the 3d largest airline by passenger operates there (hub or secondary hub). What gives?
I would think population density and major airline hubs would be the most important variables in an airport's "busyness". It doesn't jibe. Why is the ATL so -- busy?
I would think population density and major airline hubs would be the most important variables in an airport's "busyness". It doesn't jibe. Why is the ATL so -- busy?
In addition to pompomtom's logic, part of it is because the bigger US cities have multiple airports. ATL only has the one big one. Plus, the deep south isn't flush with airports like New England, for example, so a lot of southerners go to ATL to start their journey (I'm from east AL), or take short flights there to catch the big jets.
posted by parkerjackson at 9:08 PM on April 14, 2008
posted by parkerjackson at 9:08 PM on April 14, 2008
Well, Southwest maybe be the biggest airline, but they don't use a hub system, so their flights aren't concentrated at one airport. The second busiest airport is O'Hare, which is one of the hubs for AA, the 2nd biggest airline, and for United, the 4th. So the real question is why O'Hare isn't the busiest...
Well: "Prior to 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport in terms of takeoffs and landings. That year, mainly due to limits imposed by the federal government to reduce flight delays at O'Hare, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport became the busiest by that metric. "
posted by smackfu at 9:15 PM on April 14, 2008
Well: "Prior to 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport in terms of takeoffs and landings. That year, mainly due to limits imposed by the federal government to reduce flight delays at O'Hare, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport became the busiest by that metric. "
posted by smackfu at 9:15 PM on April 14, 2008
Yeah, it should also be noted that NYC airports account for 1/3rd of all US flights and "New York airspace" (which I believe includes Philadelphia) handles 1/6th of all of the WORLD'S traffic. JFK has five times more international flights than the next airport on the list.
So I'd say it's like what was said above. Atlanta is busy because it's a hub. Much like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver and Detroit are all disproportionately large airports for their cities.
posted by atomly at 9:45 PM on April 14, 2008
So I'd say it's like what was said above. Atlanta is busy because it's a hub. Much like Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver and Detroit are all disproportionately large airports for their cities.
posted by atomly at 9:45 PM on April 14, 2008
Atlanta's airport happens to be in a location where there was enough room to build a lot of runways. That's not usually the case. Logan (Boston) only has four strips, and they cross one another so they can't all be used at once. PDX only has two.
Hartsfield has 5 strips, parallel, and they use all of them all the time. I think O'Hare has six strips, but like Boston a lot of them cross, and they can't be used at the same time.
posted by Class Goat at 10:44 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
Hartsfield has 5 strips, parallel, and they use all of them all the time. I think O'Hare has six strips, but like Boston a lot of them cross, and they can't be used at the same time.
posted by Class Goat at 10:44 PM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]
ATL is not only Delta's hub, it's also the hub for AirTran and Atlantic Southeast (Delta's contract regional carrier).
Also, ATL is the main hub for the entire Southeast now that US Airways shifted most of its operations out of Charlotte. So, if you're flying to Birmingham or Nashville or Columbia, you're probably flying through ATL.
posted by dw at 12:19 AM on April 15, 2008
Also, ATL is the main hub for the entire Southeast now that US Airways shifted most of its operations out of Charlotte. So, if you're flying to Birmingham or Nashville or Columbia, you're probably flying through ATL.
posted by dw at 12:19 AM on April 15, 2008
Atlanta is a major international hub for Latin America and has quite a few direct flights to Europe.
posted by arimathea at 4:11 AM on April 15, 2008
posted by arimathea at 4:11 AM on April 15, 2008
Atlanta isn't busy because lots of people go there. It's busy because lots of people go through there to somewhere else. The large number of runways makes it a very good place to base connections, rather than as an ultimate destination. The size of the city is completely irrelevant to that requirement.
posted by Brockles at 5:07 AM on April 15, 2008
posted by Brockles at 5:07 AM on April 15, 2008
Most people either use trains, or simply live in smaller countries and don't need to travel as far.
A lot of people underestimate how large North America is. On the train, you can get from Berlin to London in ten hours. You can't get from New York to Toronto that quickly unless you fly, or drive above the speed limit.
posted by oaf at 5:22 AM on April 15, 2008
A lot of people underestimate how large North America is. On the train, you can get from Berlin to London in ten hours. You can't get from New York to Toronto that quickly unless you fly, or drive above the speed limit.
posted by oaf at 5:22 AM on April 15, 2008
Atlanta's also a good place to put a hub, weatherwise. It still has weather-related delays and cancellations because of airplanes coming from other airports, but not nearly as much as if it were the airport being pounded by snow.
It always boggled my mind that some companies would keep hubs in Colorado or Minnesota. I know many airlines start with a regional focus, but once you're large enough...why? Fewer business travelers + bad weather?
posted by aswego at 6:06 AM on April 15, 2008
It always boggled my mind that some companies would keep hubs in Colorado or Minnesota. I know many airlines start with a regional focus, but once you're large enough...why? Fewer business travelers + bad weather?
posted by aswego at 6:06 AM on April 15, 2008
A lot of people underestimate how large North America is. On the train, you can get from Berlin to London in ten hours.
Well, European trains run much faster than Americans drive, so it's probably better to think in distance:
Paris to Berlin: 933mi
Los Angeles to Denver: 1016mi
It always boggled my mind that some companies would keep hubs in Colorado or Minnesota.
Denver has closed, I think, twice since it opened in 1995. In both cases, it was extreme weather -- 3-4 feet of snow.
Honestly, DFW is far worse for weather.
posted by dw at 8:15 AM on April 15, 2008
Well, European trains run much faster than Americans drive, so it's probably better to think in distance:
Paris to Berlin: 933mi
Los Angeles to Denver: 1016mi
It always boggled my mind that some companies would keep hubs in Colorado or Minnesota.
Denver has closed, I think, twice since it opened in 1995. In both cases, it was extreme weather -- 3-4 feet of snow.
Honestly, DFW is far worse for weather.
posted by dw at 8:15 AM on April 15, 2008
If that blows your mind consider that the airport in Memphis, Tennessee (much smaller than Atlanta) is the world's busiest in terms of cargo. Basically for the same reason ATL is the busiest for passenger traffic. ATL is a hub airport and Memphis is FedEx's main hub in their hub and spoke cargo system.
posted by Carbolic at 8:22 AM on April 15, 2008
posted by Carbolic at 8:22 AM on April 15, 2008
Looking at Atlanta as "literally" a hub. If you imagine a wheel with the center at Atlanta there's a lot of places you can service from ATL, it's only a hop to a midwest hub, the south, the west or the east. If you moved that hub to a bigger city along the coast, you'd have to deal with more existing air traffic, and couldn't as easily service a large area.
posted by drezdn at 8:08 AM on April 16, 2008
posted by drezdn at 8:08 AM on April 16, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by pompomtom at 9:06 PM on April 14, 2008