FROM THE GROUND UP

For the 95 million-plus passengers who came to and through Atlanta’s HartsfieldJackson International Airport in 2012 – ahead of Beijing’s 82 million and Heathrow’s 70 million – the arrival and departure process has become a much smoother operation with the May 2012 opening of the new international concourse.

“We just celebrated our one-year anniversary,“explains Louis Miller, aviation general manager for ATL.“The additional 12 gates within the new Concourse F, along with the pre-existing gates at Concourse E, brings a total of 40 international gates to Hartsfield-Jackson. This makes us one of the largest in the country and allows a lot of opportunity for future expansion. Up until the addition, when the gates in Concourse E were full, passengers travelling internationally had to fly out of a domestic terminal. Now with enough capacity for international flights, there’s more room to accommodate domestic flights,” says Miller, who oversaw the project.

“We’ve also added a separate new roadway system for the terminal [coming from I-75], 3,700 new parking stalls including a park-n-ride lot, a short-term parking structure and a new cell phone lot. Altogether it’s helped us immensely to keep the traffic moving very efficiently through the international terminal.”

But the one thing that Miller feels is sure to appeal to all passengers travelling internationally through ATL is the new baggage re-check process.