Tag: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

I’ve been to 45 countries and counting, and the gateway to every single one has been Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As someone who loves to travel and who is lucky enough to do it professionally as a journalist, I see ATL not just as my ticket to fly, but also as one of my happy places.

By the time we boarded, a thunderstorm was moving into Atlanta. I was already a nervous flier, and this wasn’t helping matters. I’m one of those people who stopped swimming in the ocean after Jaws, and when it came to plane crashes, I’d probably seen one too many disaster movies.

Less than seven years after the first airplane took flight, aviation arrived in Atlanta on the same site as today’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In 1925, the company that would eventually become Delta Air Lines formed, and that same year, the City of Atlanta leased an early airfield south of the city for its first municipal airport. We have partnered with the Atlanta History Center for this century-long timeline of Hartsfield-Jackson and Delta Air Lines.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the city’s place of transition, where travelers bring their joy and pain together for formative experiences. The busiest and most efficient airport in the world is also where most people, Americans or otherwise, interact with Atlanta. In form and function, the airport resembles Atlanta, in all of its oddities, illusions, and aspirations, and travelers see the city for what it is.

While Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is often labeled as too big, too chaotic, and any other number of derogatory descriptors, any Atlantan worth the salt on their Waffle House hashbrowns will tell you that our airport is as efficient as they come. To streamline your experience further, try these tips.

A flight attendant. A traffic manager. A Sky Club director. These are just a few of the people who keep Atlanta’s airport humming. As Hartsfield-Jackson and Delta celebrate 100 years, we asked the workers behind the scenes what it means to keep the world moving.

A fraying wicker chair from Delta's first ever flight, a S-6000-B Sedan, as well as many other artifacts from the past century of aviation can be seen at the Delta Flight Museum. Located next to Delta’s headquarters and the Atlanta airport, the flight museum walks visitors through a century of Delta’s growth. The exhibit spaces, which were renovated earlier this year in time for Delta’s centennial, are housed inside two repurposed airline hangars.

Ed Bastian has led Delta Air Lines as its CEO since 2016, shepherding the Atlanta-headquartered company through a global pandemic and helping maintain its status as the most awarded airline in the United States. Here are five destinations—with nonstop Delta flights, of course—on Bastian’s must-travel bucket list.

Every day, travelers disappear into Minute Suites—soundproof, self-contained rooms tucked into Concourses B (two locations), T, and F, available for rent by the hour or overnight. The entrance to the one at B16, located next to a Popeyes and a beauty-product vending machine by Kylie Jenner, is so discreet that it’s easy to overlook (unless you’re already in the know). The lone giveaway is a modest sign on the wall: “Quiet Please Travelers Napping.” And, it turns out, many are.

No one is better suited to maneuver through the airport on a tight budget than Atlanta radio legend Clark Howard. Before he became a consumer-rights guru for WSB-TV (and now the host of his own podcast), he owned a travel agency, which sparked his passion for cheap getaways. Here are a few of his tips to save money while navigating Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.