AirTran Reporter

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 341
Location: Indianapolis

Ok..i think it gets to a point where at some point, a second airport is needed in certain cities, etc. If Chicago, New York, Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, etc. can have "multiple airports," why would Atlanta be any different? I see Atlanta becoming a "Chicago" type deal where at ATL you have the major/legend airlines (and throw FL in there) while the 2nd airport would have the LCCs, etc. Much like ORD has the majors and MDW has the LCCS.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I am completely opposed to having federal funds used for a 2nd airport when the primary airport is heavily filled with feeder traffic like ATL and ORD.

Member

Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 248
Location: Lexington ky

i think there should be one

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

The cities with multiple airports have them largely because the bigger ones were built to handle past growth. ORD was built because MDW and Meigs Field couldn't handle the kind of planes and traffic that growth in air travel brought. Ditto IAD vs. DCA, JFK vs. LGA, and so on. Some cities chose to close their older airports when the big new ones opened - like Denver. Atlanta has put all its resources into ATL and has zero interest in building another airport there.

What you'll start to see as Atlanta continues to grow, however, is increased demand for secondary airports. This is how FLL came to be a second airport for MIA, how OKL came to be for SFO, how MHT and BDL came to be for BOS and New York, respectively. I'd say look for people to start flying in and out of BHM more and more to get to the Atlanta metro area. Southwest flies there now; it's already established itself as a low-cost alternative to the northern and western Atlanta suburbs.