Bottoms leading fight against proposed state takeover of Atlanta International Airport

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks against human trafficking during an airport press conference

Keisha Lance Bottoms was a student at Florida A&M University back when President Frederick S. Humphries battled to keep budget control of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering at the school. Now, she is leading the battle to keep control of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport with the city she leads.

State Sen. Burt Jones, R-Jackson, doesn't want the Atlanta mayor’s office to continue running the airport, which is the driving force behind the Georgia economy.  

“We’re missing a good opportunity by not having state input over the biggest economic engine in the state,” Jones said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. “And right now it’s controlled by one elected official — the Atlanta mayor.”

The airport has a $70 billion impact on the state economy.

A fact sheet by Hartsfield-Jackson calls the airport, “the economic jewel of Georgia, generating a $34.8 billion economic impact for metro Atlanta.” It adds that “Hartsfield-Jackson is the state’s largest employer, with more than 63,000 airline, ground transportation, concessionaire, security, federal government, City of Atlanta and Airport tenant employees.”

Hartsfield-Jackson has also been the busiest passenger airport in the world since 1998.

SB 379 by Jones proposes that a new Georgia Major Airport Operations and Management Board will have the authority to control any Georgia airport “used for public commercial aviation” that “has in excess of 400,000 takeoffs and landings in any calendar year.” Hartsfield-Jackson had 883,680 takeoffs and landings in 2017.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that “Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, in her first month in office, has launched a full-scale lobbying effort to prevent the state from wresting away control of its prized jewel. Democrats vow to fight it ‘tooth and nail.’”

Bottoms has gained some support from Gov. Nathan Deal’s administration. A memo released by a staffer for the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission, which Deal leads as CEO, says that a state takeover over of the airport isn’t in the best interests of Georgia. Georgia House of Representatives Speaker David Ralston is also on the commission.

The mayor of Atlanta is continuing to take her message against the proposed takeover to lawmakers.

“It’s interesting that there are conversations about the governing authority of the airport given that we are the best airport in the world, so I’m not sure why we want to tamper with a good thing,” Bottoms recently told members of the Atlanta legislative delegation.