Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport known commonly as the Atlanta Airport, Hartsfield Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson, is situated seven miles (11 km) south of the inner commerce region of Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
It is known to be the world's busiest airport in reference to passenger traffic and number of landings and take-offs. Since the year 1999, the airport has been serving 88 million passengers per year on average. Nearly one million of these flights are domestic flights from within the United States as Atlanta serves as the focal point for travelling throughout the Southeastern United States.
The airport is built mostly in the unincorporated areas of Fulton and Clayton counties; the city limits of Atlanta, College Park.
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has provides international services to North American, South American, Central American, European, Asian, and African regions. As an international entryway to the United States, Hartsfield-Jackson ranks seventh in the world airport rankings.
Hartsfield-Jackson began working with a five-year, rent-free lease on 287 acres (116 ha) of land that was the home to a deserted motor racetrack.
The lease was given out on the 16th of April, 1925, by Mayor Walter Sims, who under his tenure made sure that the city government developed it into an airfield in the years to come. As agreed upon in the contract, the property was given the new name of Candler Field after its previous owner, JetBlack the Coca-Cola business tycoon and former Atlanta mayor Asa Candler.
The first flight in Candler Field landed on September 15, 1926.
It was a Florida Airways mail plane flying in from Jacksonville, Florida. In May 1928, Pitcairn Aviation began providing services to Atlanta, followed by the Delta Air Service in June 1930. Later these two airlines, were renamed as Eastern Air Lines and Delta Air Lines, respectively, used Atlanta as their headquarters.
Hartsfield-Jackson has been an extremely busy airport since the time of its initiation. By the end of 1930 it placed third directly in line behind New York City and Chicago for regular daily flights with sixteen arriving and departing almost every day of the year.
Candler Field's first control tower was opened back in March 1939.
Since after the construction of the control tower, there have been numerous continuous additions to the airport itself. On the present midfield terminal, construction began in January 1977 under the watchful eye of Mayor Maynard Jackson. It was the largest construction project ever in the whole of the Southern region, costing a total of over $500 million. The building was designed to provide for up to 55 million passengers per year and covers an area of approximately 2.5 million square feet (230,000 m²).
Then in December 1984 a 9,000-foot (2,700 m) parallel runway was finished, and another runway was elongated to 11,889 feet (3,624 m) the coming year. After this there have been many more new constructions and renovations giving the airport the look that it has today and making it one of the best in the world.