Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

By
Ben DeCosta
February 26, 2008

First, my thanks go to the management and editorial staff at Airport Revenue News for recognizing our hard work and success at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport.

This award is a great honor. It is especially satisfying and uplifting to be in the company of last year’s winner, my friend, Lester Robinson of Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

Lester and I share a number of very important similarities.

We’ve both implemented successful concessions programs that have helped us boost our non airline revenue.

We’ve both successfully opened new runways. Under Lester’s leadership, Detroit Metro Airport completed a “4th Runway” project. At Hartsfield-Jackson we opened our 5th.

We’ve both been recognized for our Airport’s community service contributions.

And, it’s very heartening and humbling to me that Lester and I -- a pair of African-American men -- are running two of the world’s busiest airports.

Of course, Lester and I differ slightly since Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest! (Detroit is number 20 based on ACI’s 2006 Passenger Traffic Report)

Lastly, we’re both very fortunate to lead and have the support of a solid, world class team of professionals.

I’m joined this evening by members of our Concessions team. Please stand.

This is an honor that I don’t celebrate individually. Any past wins or future triumphs are the result of the smart, dedicated and passionate professionals at Hartsfield-Jackson. It’s their collective effort that enables my success and puts Hartsfield-Jackson in the position to:

• Be a strong regional economic growth engine.
• Provide business opportunities for our partners, and
• Offer the flying public the best in customer service.

Again, thank you for this award!

By
Ben DeCosta
March 30 2008

Good morning! On behalf of Mayor Shirley Franklin and the city of Atlanta, congratulations to all the people and companies who made today possible.

They say all good things are worth the wait. And this new route was truly worth waiting and working for. It will be good for Atlanta, Delta, our friends and business associates in China and the citizens of the Southeast region. As Hartsfield-Jackson builds the Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. International Terminal this route is tangible evidence Hartsfield-Jackson is making wise investments that will benefit our collective futures.

Just last week the U.S. Census Bureau released figures that show that five of the top ten fastest growing metro areas in the U.S. are in the Southeast. This route validates that Hartsfield-Jackson will continue to play an important part in this region’s economic development and prosperity. It is routes like this that make this prosperity possible.

Again, congratulations to all those who made this day possible. Thank you for inviting me along on the ride.

By
Mario Diaz
July 7 2008

First, my thanks go to the Airport Benchmarking Task Force for again recognizing and awarding our hard work at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

This award is a great honor. In the U.S. and around the world, the rising cost of fuel is the number one challenge facing our industry and our customers. Our tenant airlines have begun to feel the sting of rising oil costs. Additional checked luggage fees, charging for soft drinks and, in extreme cases, reducing capacity, are some of the steps carriers are taking to cope with the energy situation.

In the face of what may be a catalytic event for our industry it will become more important for us to manage the areas and the practices we can control. Delivering efficiencies, working productively and maintaining sound cost structures are factors that are within our control. This is especially critical because our industry is being called on to operate in an uncontrollable economic environment.

From our efficient runways and taxiways to our efficient location as a major hub in the Southeastern United States, our team at Hartsfield-Jackson takes efficiency very seriously and we’re proud to earn this and other recognition from our industry colleagues.

Running the world’s most efficient airport is a collective and collaborative effort. Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta and I are very fortunate to lead and have the support of a solid, world-class team of professions. These dedicated men and women are the ones responsible for our past success and future triumphs.

The designation, “world’s most efficient airport” gives us a great sense of pride at Hartsfield-Jackson. It also represents a challenge for us to keep the momentum going.

Thank you!

By
Ben DeCosta
August 19 2008

Good evening everyone. At this point in the program, you’ve already heard from Governor Perdue and Mayor Franklin. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll indulge me one last opportunity to thank you all for spending time with us in Atlanta during the past several days. You will soon be heading to our airport for your flights home. I wish you a safe, secure and enjoyable journey. Your satisfaction is our mission.

Of course, Hartsfield-Jackson and your home airports are much more than the last items on your travel itinerary. I believe airports represent the tie that binds together many of the themes and conversations in which you’ve engaged these past three days. Trade Logistics, Travel and Tourism and Regional Market Opportunities are all areas that are bolstered by and dependant on access to efficient air transportation. For Atlanta, our connection to the world is a key element of our prosperity.

With an annual economic impact of more than 23-billion dollars, Hartsfield-Jackson is at the foundation of the robust growth here in Atlanta and this region. With almost 90-million passengers, we’re recognized as the world’s busiest airport. We’re a hub and our success is also dependant on Delta Air Lines and the other major airports in the Americas, such as Bogota’s El Dorado airport, Rio’s Galeão International Airport and Guatemala City’s La Aurora International Airport. As Ed Bastian mentioned last night at the aquarium dinner, your connection to Europe, Asia, the Middle East or Africa can be made through Atlanta.

I have the honor of serving on the Airports Council International, a worldwide organization. We advocate for the global aviation industry. The world’s airport executives and their boards are allies.

We accept our mandate to promote air transportation everywhere.

Collectively, Hartsfield-Jackson, and your home airports are responsible for helping the Americas compete in this global economy -- a global economy rich in both opportunities and challenges.

Two of these challenges are among the things that keep me and my peers energized and a little worried too – fuel market volatility and escalating construction costs. Here in the U.S., eight airlines have stopped flying, in part, due to fuel costs.

Dramatic increases in construction costs are causing airports to reexamine and potentially scale back their capital budgets. I’m not breaking news. These are catalytic events impacting all areas of our economy and it will take all of our focus to manage these challenges. Governments and business – together– must partner to tackle these problems.

However, as I said, the global economy also provides tremendous opportunity. Much of this was discussed over the last three days:

• Opportunities in sustainable tourism (and conferences), a major source of our prosperity. We thank you very much.
• Opportunities in public and private partnerships – our 6-billion dollar investment in airport infrastructure is a good example. (Thousands of good construction jobs.)
• Opportunities in global supply chain management – air cargo is a fast growing segment in the global economy.

I’m excited because airports and the aviation industry enjoy a proven track record of supporting global commerce in the Americas and around the world. You must keep your airports strong and they will return the investment many times over.

We are partners and stakeholders invested in helping our communities capitalize on these opportunities by providing connectivity and access – jobs and profits.

One closing thought – as the Olympic Games continue – we are reminded that on the global economic field of play, airports and the aviation sector are ready to help the Americas bring home the gold.

Once again, thank you for bringing this important forum to Atlanta and I wish you all a pleasant journey home.

By
Robert Kennedy
September 25 2008

Good afternoon! Welcome to Atlanta and welcome to Hartsfield-Jackson! Hartsfield-Jackson takes great pride in being the world’s busiest airport, but we are not too proud to be open-minded to fresh ideas and strategies that result in better ways to accommodate passengers and favorably impact the economy.

We enjoy being partners and collaborating with CIFAL in this seminar series. As we navigate the future of our industry, it is vital we maintain open channels of communication and I applaud CIFAL for making that possible.

I have been looking forward to this session, focusing on the Caribbean. At various points in my career, I have enjoyed the opportunities working with several airports in your region. My time at these facilities has given me a deep understanding of your business and your challenges.

You share common ground with airports around the world when it comes to operating in the face of today’s economic uncertainties.

Much has been said over the past months about the economy, fuel and the impact on the aviation industry. Earlier this month, in one of the Air Transport Association’s daily e-mail briefings, the top three stories dealt with either carrier job cuts or capacity reductions.

This is a challenging time for our industry and there are no quick fixes. In July, our general manager Ben DeCosta participated in the American Association of Airport Executives Energy – Air Service Task Force. That panel came to the consensus that there may be some short-term steps that the government and lawmakers can take to help the U.S aviation industry; however, it is clear that this is a long-term, global situation with no quick fix.

As a result of this environment, it has become more and more important for our industry to focus on those areas within our control. At the top of that list is service delivery.

All of us need to ask ourselves, in the face of these turbulent market conditions, what are we doing to put our customers first? Are we doing the best we can to maintain a sufficient level of service delivery?

That is what we are focusing on here at Hartsfield-Jackson – making sure we are doing everything we can to improve the customer experience.

Service delivery involves the entire airport community, from the curbside to the gate. You could even argue it begins at the moment a traveler books a flight.

I could outline how every team member and every airport function play a part in service delivery, but that would take the rest of the afternoon.

What I will focus on are four specific programs underway at Hartsfield-Jackson and detail the roles these initiatives play in enabling us to better serve our customers.

I’ll start with one of our capital improvement programs.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Capital Improvement Program is an investment that is preparing us for tomorrow’s growth, while helping us better service customers today.

We earned a substantial amount of media and industry attention when we opened the fifth runway. From an aviation perspective, the fifth runway is a stand out achievement. From the customer’s point of view, the fifth runway has been successful in delivering reduced wait times and fewer flight delays.

Another successful capital project is Taxiway Victor. This is an end-around taxiway that eliminates the need for arriving planes to cross active runways on their way to the arrival gates. Planes landing on our northernmost runway can simply travel to the end of the runway, make a sharp left and then turn right onto the new taxiway before traveling to the gate area.

Since its opening in April 2007, Taxiway Victor has helped save airlines approximately $27 million a year in fuel costs. For passengers, the availability of Taxiway Victor helps reduce the amount of time travelers spend idle on the aircraft by getting them to the gate sooner.

We are investing $25 million to expand our security checkpoints. When we are finished, we will have a net total of 32 security lanes. This expansion will give us more capacity, improve efficiency and improve throughput. We are working with the Transportation Security Administration and our goal is to keep security checkpoint wait times under 20 minutes.

The fifth runway, Taxiway Victor and our check point expansion are all projects that are yielding tangible and measurable customer benefits.

I encourage all of you, when planning your capital development – large and small – to keep the customer in mind. What are the customers’ needs? How will this project improve the traveler’s experience?

Another step toward improving the customer’s experience is a major expansion in our retail concessions program.

In 2009, retail concessions will increase by 70 new shops. We will have national and international brands, general consumer labels and several Atlanta based retailers. For our customers, a robust concessions portfolio enables them to turn their wait times into productive and enjoyable times. Of course for the Airport, this translates into a healthy stream of non-airline revenue.

The last area I will focus on is our overall commitment to customer service. Customer service is a strategic priority at Hartsfield-Jackson.

I believe this is the backbone that supports everything we do in the service delivery arena.

Passenger surveys polling nearly 20,000 travelers annually, place Hartsfield-Jackson in the “best-in-class” category.

One independent study ranked Hartsfield-Jackson fourth best among 12 global airports that accommodate more than 40 million passengers a year.

Earlier, I focused on some of the Airport’s physical amenities, but true customer service is all about ensuring all of our human interactions are meeting and exceeding customer needs.

We have been very successful in this area and to help us maintain our momentum, we are developing a wide-ranging customer service training initiative.

We will enlist the entire airport community in this program, including our concessionaires and airline tenants. The goal is to enable the Airport community to provide world-class customer service by anticipating customer wants, needs and expectations.

We will train our team members to proactively act on potential service failures and empower them to offer service recovery, without being told to do so.

Before the end of the year, we will launch a comprehensive two to three year training program targeted to senior leaders all the way through to front-line staffers.

This training program is a big step toward changing our team members’ behaviors and it will put Hartsfield-Jackson closer to the goal of being the best by exceeding customer expectations.

I’ll wrap up here in order for us to have time for a question and answer session. In closing, I hope I have inspired you to take another look at service delivery. We know the financial issues our industry is facing and we must remember that our customers are also feeling the pinch of tough economic times.

If our airports are to remain strong economic engines, it is increasingly important we not loose sight of our customers’ needs and expectations.

Once again, thank you for joining us, welcome to Atlanta and enjoy the rest of the conference.

By
Phila Arnaldo Ruiz
September 25 2008

Good morning everyone! Thank you for including us in today’s program. We at Hartsfield-Jackson are always ready and willing to share best practices.

Given today’s economic challenges, it’s important for all sectors of business to work together to come up with strategies aimed at helping our communities succeed despite economic uncertainties. Today the airline industry is facing an economic environment never to have been experienced in the past. Oil prices, although they have receded in recent weeks, continue to hover above $100 a barrel. This unprecedented increase in costs to the airlines has resulted in the bankruptcy of several carriers. Those surviving carriers have taken aggressive measures to both reduce capacity and increase fares. This has resulted in over 100 cities nationwide expected to lose all commercial service, and some airports to lose up to 9 to 10 percent of their service in terms of seats available. To top it off, the current financial and capital market crisis and the threat of our economy falling into a full-fledged recession will continue to add pressure for travelers to reduce or postpone their plans for air travel.

Hartsfield-Jackson is not immune to this crisis; however, to this point we have weathered the storm. As a major hub that accommodates more than 2,500 flights per day, we’re not feeling the same impacts as some other U.S. airports. However, we remain cautious. We are continuously analyzing the impact to our operations, and at least for the rest of calendar year 2008 we expect to be relatively flat compared to last year and serve close to 90 million passengers.

However, we are not as optimistic for next year and we are forecasting the possibility of a reduction in passengers of up to 5 percent. What does that mean? It means, that fewer people park in our parking lots, fewer people shop and dine at our retail and food and beverage concessions, fewer people rent cars, and fewer people pay Passenger Facilities Charges, or PFCs, which help us fund our capital investments. So like many of you, we are tightening our belts and staying open to new ideas and best practices for maintaining service levels in the face of less than ideal economic conditions.

Now that I have shared with you a bird’s eye view of the challenges the airline industry and our airport is facing, you are probably asking yourself, why is the airport’s financial and traffic performance important to the City of Atlanta and the region? First of all Hartsfield-Jackson is known as the economic engine of Metro Atlanta and to great extent the Southeast region. The main objective of Hartsfield-Jackson since has always been to drive economic development for the City. We are keenly aware of our responsibility. We are one of the jewels in the crown for the City of Atlanta to attract tourism and business to this growing metropolis and we are a key part of the web that forms the metro Atlanta transportation system. The Airport is just ten miles from downtown Atlanta, conveniently and strategically located off of two major interstate highways. We’re easily accessible by local light rail and by bus.

The Airport remains a major contributor to the metro Atlanta economy. With an annual economic impact of more than $23 billion, Hartsfield-Jackson is at the center of the robust growth in Atlanta and this region.

The Airport – directly and indirectly – is responsible for more than 393,000 jobs in metro Atlanta. These Airport jobs produce more than $15 billion in personal income. Additionally, our capital improvement program and our strategic land use initiatives are investments in the future that are creating thousands of construction, and construction-related jobs. It’s important to point out that shortly after 9-11, many airports decided to defer infrastructure investment. One of our standout infrastructure investments is the construction of our fifth runway. We opened this runway in 2006. Since then it has helped reduce flight delays by 78 percent and has helped save airlines more than $250 million in cost-related delays. Our capital improvement program represents an aggressive stance, based on our belief that the resilience of Hartsfield-Jackson justified our moving forward. Even in today’s difficult economic environment we are not sitting still on the critical strategy that the future growth of economic development will be driven by providing easy access to the world.

We are in the midst of planning a new $1.6 billion international terminal east of the current airport to be accessed by Interstate 75.

Since 2005, the Airport and the Georgia Department of Transportation have collaborated to enhance customer access between the proposed International Terminal roadway system and Interstate 75. A direct ramping scheme is being envisioned to provide improved travel times and easier way finding.

Additionally, we’re collaborating with the Transportation department on a signage program. Revised signs will give travelers advanced guidance to either the International Terminal, accessible via Interstate 75 or the Domestic Terminal with access maintained, similar to today, via Interstate 85. In addition to our capital development program, we have embarked on a series of strategic land-use projects that also represent our investment in the future of the metro Atlanta region. The Ford Motor Company has closed a manufacturing plant that's adjacent the airport. Ford has sold the land to Jacoby Development, a firm with great experience in developing abandoned industrial locations sites. The plan is to turn this 122-acre site into a mixed-use destination that will include office, retail, dining and hotel properties. Additionally, the Airport will gain additional parking. This is a unique piece of land with great development potential. A second land use initiative taking place is in College Park, a small municipality that neighbors the Airport. The development firm Grove Street Partners has broken ground on two hotel properties (Marriott and Spring Hill Suites) that will anchor the Gateway Center - a one million square foot mixed-use development. Besides the hotels, the Gateway Center will also include office and retail space. These properties will be adjacent to the Georgia International Convention Center.

The Gateway Center is a quarter-mile from the Airport and our expanded elevated train will take travelers back and forth between the Airport, the Convention Center and our new Consolidated Rental Car Complex. These land use programs -- the Gateway Center and the Ford plant redevelopment -- will help make the region - particularly the area near the Airport - more attractive and competitive, and these programs are fantastic examples of the benefits of strategic public-private partnerships.

With respect to this morning’s discussion, Hartsfield-Jackson brings a unique point of view to this conversation. While we do play a role in the day-to-day movement of traffic in and around metro Atlanta, our broader mission goes beyond transportation. The Airport helps our area gain access to commerce and opportunity domestically and abroad. For metro Atlanta and the Southeast, access to the world is a key element of our prosperity.

With almost 90-million passengers, we’re recognized as the world’s busiest airport and we’ve helped Atlanta become a city connected to the world. Delta Air Lines has adopted a strategy focused on international service and we are able to connect metro Atlanta to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean and most of North and Latin America.

Great attention has been placed by all stakeholders, including the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, city government, private business, Hartsfield-Jackson and others to serve and attract business from the growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In March of this year, Delta began non-stop service from Atlanta to Shanghai, China. Atlanta is the only hub in the Southeast that offers direct service to China.

In November, Delta will offer service from Atlanta to Mumbai, India and in December, service from Atlanta to Brazil will begin to Manaus, Fortaleza and Recife to add to the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro currently being served. Having access to international air travel helps make the metro Atlanta region more competitive in attracting new business, international companies or businesses interested in relocating.

Most importantly, economists have concluded that metro Atlanta’s ability to attract foreign investment is helping insulate the region from negative impacts brought by the current economic downturn.

These stronger connections to more places around the world enrich the region from a business perspective as well as culturally and socially.

I’ll end here and take another opportunity to welcome you to Atlanta and thank you, again, for including Hartsfield-Jackson in today’s program.