Mansfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport: A Case Study

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) officially opened on July 3, 1925, with two 1,500-foot dirt strips set at right angles, and has evolved into the busiest airport in the world today. The complexities that surround airside operations enable the airport to support current flight operations. At the same time, modern facility and system upgrades will boost efficiency and preserve its international ranking. First and foremost, in order for Hartsfield-Jackson to sustain the estimated 4,500 flight operations per day, it must have an adequate runway configuration. It now has a total of five parallel runways, one of which was built over top a local interstate highway. As shown in figure 1, the runways are positioned on either side of seven passenger concourses, …show more content…
One example is Precision Runway Monitor (PRM). This is a high update radar system installed at ATL, which allows simultaneous instrument approaches to parallel runways as close as 3000 feet apart (Federal Aviation Administration, 2014). Noted by the FAA, another improvement in use at is Same Runway Departure Fanning that uses Equivalent Lateral Spacing Operations (ELSO). This improvement allows reduced separation between successive departures due to the availability of new Standard Instrument Departure (SID) procedures, which provide more precise guidance and control for departing aircraft. Lastly, ATL has developed four weather conditions, modeled due to distinct operational differences between Instrument and Low Instrument conditions. Visual, marginal, instrument, and low instrument conditions divided into departure and arrival priority modes are heavily used during unbalanced periods of activity on the field. Reference Figure 3 for a description and annual observations of each condition and Figure 4 for the expectation of hourly operations in each