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 From
your friends at ATCMonitor.com. © 2006 - Reproduction without
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Congestion has been and continues to be a major problem at many airports throughout the United States. According to many economic reports regarding airport delays, they are directly related to the mass congestion of traffic on arrival and departure.
For example, during the first 5 months of 2003, over 25 percent of the traffic entering Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International airport was more than 15 minutes late and according to Atlanta's Department of Aviation (DOA), these delays cost the airport nearly $1 million per day in fuel and personnel costs, lost passenger time, and lost business opportunities.
Furthermore, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicted that in 2006 more than 90 million passengers will pass through the Atlanta
(ATL) airport.
This equates to more travelers in a single year at one given airport than any other airport in the history of commercial
flight. But that's no surprise since Atlanta is considered the busiest airport in the world.
With the escalating demands by airlines to increase flights and the need to reduce the delays of the current arrivals and departure, Atlanta is faced with many challenges.
At this time, traffic arrives at the Atlanta (ATL) airport at a rate of around 180 arrivals per hour with Visual Flight Rules
(VFR) or good weather.
However, this rate gradually decreases to 170 arrivals per hour in marginal weather and even further decreases to 150 arrivals per hour in bad weather, or Instrument Flight Rules
(IFR) weather. The current layout on the Atlanta airport is setup with four parallel runways, with two of them accommodating arrivals and the other two handling departures.
But even with four existing parallel runways, the area is inadequate to handle the projected mix of air carrier and commuter aircrafts in the coming years and is nearly reached its full capacity already.
In the past, one of the methods suggested to decrease this massive onslaught of congestion was to allow for aircraft to enter the airport area through three arrival streams instead of just
two.  However, this method was never really considered to be an absolute resolution due to the inadequate space available for safe separation of aircraft with arrivals using the existing parallel runways in place today.
So how will Atlanta solve these problems? The City of Atlanta has taken on a 10 year $5.4 billion dollar plan known as the
Hartsfield Development Program
(HDP) to enable the airport to meet the forecasted demands of nearly 121 million
passengers per year, which will supposedly occur by the year 2015.
The proposed plan has many items on its agenda for expansion, but by far the most challenging portion of this plan includes a 9,000 feet fifth runway
(runway 10-28) with accommodating taxiway positioned on the airport to facilitate more arrival and departure traffic.
Although this new construction will decrease delays and allow for an increase in traffic, it is no small undertaking.
In fact, determining the best position for placement of this new runway has created challenges of its own because the existing 3,750-acre, landlocked airport is surrounded by interstate highways on three sides.
In addition to the determination of the runways placement, other challenges such as land preparation must be considered.
In order to even begin building the new runway itself, construction companies
had to build a massive conveyor belt system that is five miles in length to import more than 27 million cubic yards of landfill to the site.
In order to do that and keep on schedule, dirt arrived on the airport construction site at a rate of 7,000 tons of dirt per hour every day.
The new construction site has enough dirt to have filled the Georgia dome, which is the height of a 27-story building, more than seven times over.
The new runway is considered one of the most complex structures in the world, which includes the worlds longest runway bridge and the construction of Georgia's first ever runway tunnel.
The runway bridge construction has remained to be one of the most interesting aspects of the runway's construction due to the fact that it is being laid overtop of
interstate 285. While the bridge will span across 10 lanes of traffic, it is being designed such that future expansion of up to nearly 18 lanes is possible.
The fifth runway is being constructed such that two-thirds of the runway pavement will be located on the west side of the interstate and the remainder across the highway on the east side.
This $159 million dollar 400 foot linear bridge structure is being built to link the east
and west side sections of the runway together. The tunnel underneath the bridge will allow more than 135,000
vehicles per day to pass safely underneath arrival and departure traffic on the runway.
While most aircraft will touch down before they cross the bridged section, some smaller aircraft are likely to make contact with the ground directly on top of the road tunnel, therefore landing directly above the interstate traffic.
But not to worry, this structure is being built to withstand a weight greater than 1.3 million pounds, which is greater than the weight of an Airbus A380; the heaviest commercial airliner
currently in production.
Merely building a new runway will not decrease the saturated airways or increase the ability to accept more traffic without proper management and facilities to support an expansion.
So the question remains, will this new runway with all of its technological advances and record breaking feats really decrease delays and allow for increased arrivals into the Atlanta airport?
Atlanta's Department of Aviation thinks it will. In fact, the new runway not only provides the ability to have three arrival traffic streams, which could increase the arrival rate by nearly 30 percent, but also provides CAT III operations, allowing for arrivals and departures in all weather conditions.
Other forms of expansion on the airport include a new control tower that is 100 feet taller than the current
tower allowing unobstructed views of the entire field including new runway
10/28, an additional terminal building on the east side of the field, and automated tram system that will transport nearly 130,000 passengers an hour around the different terminals of the Atlanta airport.
Although these expansions are in place to meet the predicted forecast of 121 million passengers by the year 2015 Atlanta's aviation advisors are already working on even further expansions.
In an alternate expanded plan, designers had originally envisioned even a sixth runway, but due to the fact that it wasn't economically viable to the surrounding community, that plan has been dismissed.
Although the new additions of the fifth runway and accommodating taxiway are currently under construction and have a planned completion date of 2006, the airport itself and the personnel in charge of these expansions are conducting concept development studies for an international terminal, additional domestic terminals, extension of the fifth runway and other airport
improvements.
These future and ongoing improvements will not only improve the community and the economy, but also help the Atlanta International airport to meet the demands of future air travel and maintain their status as a global aviation leader.
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