Hartsfield Jackson get $1 million to study expansion

A new study by the Federal Aviation Administration warns airports around the country to expand, otherwise they won't be able to meet the growing demand for international air travel and freight.

The study comes on the first anniversary of Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson expanded fifth runway and coincides with a $1-million dollar grant to the airport.

Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson airport joins nearly 2 dozen others across the country with limited choices: expand or perish.

The $1-millon dollar grant from the federal Department of Transportation will fund the first ever airport expansion feasibility study.

Federal Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters says one other option metro areas should consider is converting dormant military bases to civilian use.

"Make no mistake, building a handful of airports is not enough to get us off the hook. Our new report shows that by 2025, 15 metropolitian areas won't have the ability to handle the demand for flights unless they move forward with planned improvement."

Ben DeCosta is general manager for Hartsfield Jackson. DeCosta supports regional expansion but says, an additional runway at Hartfield Jackson is not an option.

"We'll look at everything and see what's in the best interests of our region. It's something that local leaders will have to address, not only in the best interest of the local economy but in the best interests of the region and the nation."

In 2006, nearly 100 million people passed through the terminals at Hartsfield Jackson. Airport officials say a burgeoning international travel market makes a second airport essential to the region's economic viability.

A feasibility study on just where a second airport might be located is still years away.

Meanwhile, as construction continues at Hartsfield Jackson, airport officials contemplate doubling the passenger facility fee to $7-dollars. That's the amount passengers pay above the actual ticket price. Hartsfield officials say the money is an important source of funding airport construction.

FAA: corrupted software shut down Atlanta system

Tuesday's mass flight delays caused by an electronic communication failure at a Federal Aviation Administration facility near Atlanta drew new criticism for an agency that has been scrutinized over air traffic controller staffing levels and inspection standards for its ground-based equipment.

The software glitch that delayed flights at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and nationwide, came as the FAA celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Kathleen Bergen is spokesperson at the FAA’s Naden facility at Hampton, south of Atlanta:

“The system went down during a normal, daily software load. Apparently a file was corrupted and that brought the system down… the Naden outage resulted in about 650 flight delays nationwide -- 140 of those in Atlanta.”

Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest airport in the world, but Bergen says no flights were endangered from the software failure:

“The fact that we are in Atlanta, it is a busy airport, all our flight plans are processed through our facility in Hampton did create a bit of difficulty yesterday. But the important thing is that all the fights departed and arrived safely.”

Bergen says the FAA plans to update the Atlanta, and Salt Lake City facilities – which handles all flight plans west of the Mississippi -- early next year.

The Northeast was hardest hit by the delays prompted Tuesday by a glitch at a Hampton, Ga., facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S.

As of Wednesday morning, the FAA said that the situation around the country had returned to normal, with most delays from the malfunction being cleared up Tuesday night. But spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said the investigation into what caused the problem is still ongoing, and she did not know when it would be completed.

"It usually takes a while to be quite honest," she said.

A spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson, did not return a call seeking comment on the impact there from Tuesday's episode. Bergen said officials at the Atlanta airport were entering flight data manually to try to speed things up.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said the episode "once again highlights the need to reform and repair a broken system." His Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, said "airline passengers are sick and tired of delays and cancellations." And the nonprofit Travel Industry Association called it "one more example of America's deteriorating air travel system."

Discount carrier AirTran Airways, which has its hub at the Atlanta airport, said in a statement that because of the suburban FAA center snafu it was at one point taking up to an hour for the FAA to get clearances to the towers for departures Tuesday. Delta Air Lines Inc., which has its main hub in Atlanta, said flights were processing for takeoff, but slowly.

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(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

Fog, rain slow some flights at Hartsfield-Jackson

Delta Airlines jets line up at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. (AP/John Bazemore)

Fog and rain caused some flight delays at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport at the start of the busiest travel day of the year.

But airport officials on Sunday say they're off to a crowded, but smooth start for Thanksgiving travelers trying to get home.

National Weather Service meteorologist Patricia Atwell says weather conditions were causing low visibility that could slow aircraft arrivals.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported departure delays between 15 to 30 minutes and arrival delays of about 45 minutes Sunday morning because of clouds and low visibility.

Airport officials urged travelers to do their homework -- checking flight status, security waits and available parking -- before getting to the airport.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

(AP)

Hartsfield-Jackson: Few Travel Weather Woes

Hartsfield-Jackson. (Google Earth)

Bad weather in other parts of the country caused mild traveling headaches over the weekend at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration says flights to New York, Newark and Philadelphia at one point were experiencing delays of between two and four hours.

The delays at the nation's busiest airport were blamed on storms and wind in the Midwest and Northeast. But officials told reporters that security lines were still moving well.

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(The Associated Press)

Getting Home After The Holidays

Hartsfield-Jackson. (Google Earth)

Travelers heading home after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend swarmed airports Sunday but without the long lines and delays many had feared.

"So far, at least, it's been reasonable,'' Alli Charney of Atlanta said as she waited for a flight at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. "I just left very early, got a good night's rest and drank lots of coffee.''

Airport officials estimated about 1.8 million people would pass through Hartsfield during the long holiday weekend, including about 324,000 people on Sunday and 305,000 expected on Monday.

That is about a 4.6 percent increase in holiday weekend traffic from last year, airport spokesman Herschel Grangent said Sunday. Despite light rain, wait times were low at the airport about 25 minutes on Sunday, Grangent said.

But not all travelers were pleased.

Ben Oni had to wait an extra 12 hours at Atlanta for his flight home to San Jose, Calif., while lugging a 32-inch flat screen television, because he missed the check-in deadline for his original flight by one minute.

"It's awful. I feel very unhappy, extremely unhappy and disappointed,'' the program manager said.

Oni was one of about 324,000 people expected to pass through the world's busiest airport and brave what is typically one of the airport's busiest travel days of the year.

(The Associated Press)

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Busy travel day expected at Atlanta airport

Hartsfield-Jackson.

It's expected to be a busy travel day at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

A spokesman says more than 300,000 passengers are expected to past through the world's busiest airport Wednesday, the day after Christmas.

Currently, all 22 security lanes are open and there is about a 25-minute wait to get through.

About 1.8 million people were expected to pass through the airport from Dec. 20 to Thursday.

Another burst of passengers is expected over the New Year's holiday period.

(The Associated Press)

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Post Christmas travel moving at Hartsfield

Officials at the world's busiest airport in Atlanta say they expect nearly 2-million people to pass through before holiday season 2007 officially ends. At Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, the Friday before Christmas saw passenger numbers peak at 324-thousand, says airport spokesperson Herschel Grangent. Grantgent says things ran smoothly on the ground, despite the volume. "We had an agreement with the TSA to keep all the lanes open for screening throughout all the peak times, which helped us to stay on top of everything." And, for the day after Christmas, Grangent says ... "We're expecting about 300-thousand people to come through. But, we're making plans to manage that by keeping as many personnel here as possible to help keep the crowd moving and get everybody where they're trying to go." Bad weather in the Midwest has not affected flights in and out of Hartsfield. However, there is a bit of a delay if you have to go through security. Estimated wait times at the airport's nearly 2-dozen gates is running about 20 minutes.

Heavy travel today for holiday

Millions of people are traveling today, many through Georgia’ main airport in Atlanta. Foggy weather has thus far not hampered travel at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. As of about noon, the airport’s website reported wait times of less than 10 minutes in security lines. Flights are also largely on time. Today and January 2nd are the season’s heaviest travel days.

Atlanta airport security ready for travel crush

The holiday period starts tomorrow, and Atlanta airport security officials say they’ll be fully-staffed to handle the crush of travelers.

The 12-day holiday travel period could see record numbers of flyers using Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport. Airport officials say the Transportation Security Administration is not equipped to handle the load of passengers.

TSA spokesman Jon Allen disagrees. He says it will be “all hands on deck” with part-timers added for this period.

"We actually did some adjustments to our scheduling that went into effect a couple of months ago…to deploy staff at different times, in order to try to better meet those peak travel demand times”.

Security wait-times last weekend were well-above the airport’s target of 15-20 minutes.

TSA does plan to cut 50 full-timers from its Atlanta-operations, down to a regular number of 850.

Atlanta airport officials: "a really good day"

As people across the state settle-in for Thanksgiving Day meals and celebrations today, officials with Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport reported few flight delays yesterday. The day is traditionally known as the busiest travel day of the year. Security checkpoint lines were reported as moving steadily. Yesterday's travel day was said by an airport spokeswoman to be "a really good day before Thanksgiving".

Early holiday travel off to good start

The early start to Thanskgiving holiday travel looks good for Georgians. The state Department of Transportation says most construction involving lane closures will be suspended from now until midnight Sunday. Current gas prices are friendly to drivers--the average in Georgia for regular unleaded is in the $1.70 range. It's the lowest for the Thanksgiving holiday in four years. And for people using Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport, security wait times early Wednesday morning were listed at 10 minutes.

Thanksgiving travel period underway

Many travelers hit the roads, and the skies Wednesday as the Thanksgiving holiday period began at 6pm, running through midnight Sunday. At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, officials expect to see a slight increase for the 102-hour stretch over last year, to about 1.7 million travelers moving through the airport. On the road, officials predict more than a million Georgians will travel more than 50 miles this weekend--a bit down from last year.

Hartsfield Airport Expects 1.3 million

The nation's busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson International, is expecting 1.3 million people to pass through its door's this Labor Day weekend. That is an estimated six percent increase in traffic from last year’s Labor Day holiday.

The Transportation Security Administration has sent extra workers; every security lane in the airport is open.

Airport official, Herschel Grangent, told GPB news that the goal is for travelers to have to wait no more than 30-minutes in line, even during peak hours.

"That’s the goal: to keep everybody happy, keep everybody moving and getting to their planes on time," Grangent said.

Almost 250,000 people are expected at the airport per day. The heaviest travel is expected to be on Friday.