US airport ready for boost as city to host eight matches at soccer showpiece
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is readying for a lift from this summer’s FIFA World Cup, for which the US city is hosting eight matches including one of the semi-finals.
“We know some of the matches already, and we’ve had some airlines reach out and say they want to run some services because we have games, so how do we make this work,” said Rebecca Francosky, ATL’s Director Air Service Data Analytics, Research & Reporting.
The Delta Air Lines hub remains the busiest airport in the world, despite a slight drop in passenger numbers last year to 106.3 million.
But even with the size of the airport, Francosky said there remain several targets markets it is looking to add direct services.
“One of our big unserved markets is India,” she said. “We only have two direct services to Asia. So Asia is a very big focus for us. Africa is another one.”
While Southwest Airlines cut back some of its capacity at Atlanta last year, low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines has expanded at the airport. “Frontier is now our second-largest carrier in Atlanta behind Delta and they would like to continue growing in Atlanta,” Francosky added. “So we are definitely seeing an opportunity in terms of the overall growth of the low-cost market in Atlanta.”
