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Closer, mid-distance from the city is best. Dobbins is an ideal location.
I was thinking PDK. Right next to MARTA already. KATL is SW of downtown. KPDK is NE of downtown.
Has the feel of KHOU and KDAL in that they're closer to the city center than KIAH and KDFW. (Well, actually ATL might be closer to downtown, but PDK is probably closer to the center of population) All are located slightly off the nearest freeway. Lots of general aviation action that does just fine despite commercial airline traffic.
But, I don't know if the runway(s) is really long enough to work and I don't know if they can expand.
Plus, HOU and DAL both are homes mostly to SW while IAH is United and DFW is AA. ATL is obviously Delta and that pattern isn't a good sign for Delta. They have a lot of clout in Georgia and they'd fight hard to preserve their status in Atlanta and I don't know if having a 2nd airport is really beneficial to them.
I was thinking PDK. Right next to MARTA already. KATL is SW of downtown. KPDK is NE of downtown.
Has the feel of KHOU and KDAL in that they're closer to the city center than KIAH and KDFW. (Well, actually ATL might be closer to downtown, but PDK is probably closer to the center of population) All are located slightly off the nearest freeway. Lots of general aviation action that does just fine despite commercial airline traffic.
But, I don't know if the runway(s) is really long enough to work and I don't know if they can expand.
Plus, HOU and DAL both are homes mostly to SW while IAH is United and DFW is AA. ATL is obviously Delta and that pattern isn't a good sign for Delta. They have a lot of clout in Georgia and they'd fight hard to preserve their status in Atlanta and I don't know if having a 2nd airport is really beneficial to them.
I live very near PDK, and it will never happen. Besides rioting in the streets, the foaming at the mouth NIMBY's would sue to hell and back to ensure it's tied up in Court for decades.
I think we perhaps will remain a single Airport Metro, I would frankly be shocked if we ever gained a second one.
Dobbins would really be ideal, because even though Cobb is much closer to Hartsfield-Jackson than Gwinnett is, Gwinnett has better MARTA access at Doraville and a potential future station at I-85, on the line that goes right down to the airport. And same thing with North Fulton/Forsyth, with their easy access to North Springs MARTA.
But I would also recommend Athens airport be upgraded to be large commercial jet status enough to be able to pull some domestic flight business from Gwinnett and the northeast metro. Either Athens or Gainesville, or both.
None of these would be even half the size and business of HJIA of course, but there needs to be more than one decent airport for the 9th largest metro area of the country. And probably gonna be climbing in that rank. Atlanta has only 300,000 less population than the DC metro which is the 6th largest.
I feel like Athens' airport has a slightly better chance of becoming a commercial airport than Dobbins does. It's over an hour away from here, and Atlanta's growth hasn't quite extended all the way out there yet. But they would have to overcome their own NIMBY issues as well, and they'd be competing against the much bigger airport here.
Does anybody else think this would be a good idea? The main Atlanta airport is pretty far for most people living north of the city. Plenty of major metros like D.C, Chicago, NYC, L.A, Miami have more than one airport. I'm wondering if a smaller airport north of Alpharetta would be a good idea.
I think that the construction and opening of a second, smaller airport in a location like an area north of Alpharetta would be a good idea.
It's just that the highly affluent residents of an upscale Northside region like North Fulton/west Forsyth/east Cherokee counties likely would never allow the construction of a second Atlanta airport in or near their neighborhoods.
… The construction of a second major airport that they have the financial resources and extensive political connections to easily prevent.
… Not unlike how many of those affluent Northside residents used their financial resources and extensive political connections to stop the construction of a proposed Northern Arc superhighway that they strongly opposed back in the early 2000's.
I also agree with other posters who say that Dobbins Air Reserve Base would be a good candidate to be the site of a second major Atlanta airport.
But the potential challenge with converting Dobbins into a second major airport to serve Northside residents is that Dobbins (which was originally named Dobbins Air Force Base and was the site of a naval air station, NAS Atlanta) was downgraded to an Air Reserve Base in 1992 apparently because of concerns for the safety of adjacent and surrounding neighborhoods after multiple military plane crashes during attempted takeoffs and landings in the 1980's and early 1990's.
If Dobbins were proposed to be converted into a second major commercial airport for the Atlanta region, the concerns about the safety of adjacent neighborhoods would most assuredly again become a major issue along with concerns about the affects of airplane noise on neighborhoods in the flight path of Dobbins' runways, opposition to the plan, etc.
It should be noted that the idea of constructing a second major commercial airport to serve Northside residents is not a recent idea, but appears to be an idea that goes back decades, even before World War II.
Dobbins was originally proposed in 1940 as a commercial airfield that was intended to be a Northside alternative to then-Candler Field (now Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport).
But the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II in 1941 necessitated that Dobbins be used for national defense, both as an air force base and as the site of a massive military aircraft factory that eventually became Lockheed.
The start of the decades-long Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in the late 1940's and America's entry into the heated Korean War conflict in 1950, along with the explosive growth that the massive Lockheed facility generated in areas around and adjacent to Dobbins, negated any possibility of the Dobbins facility being converted into a second major commercial airport to serve the Northside of the Atlanta region.
It should also be noted that in 1971 the City of Atlanta purchased more than 10,000 acres of land in then far-flung Dawson County in the forested Appalachian foothills of North Georgia with the intent of eventually constructing a second major airport to serve Northside residents.
… But the status of that land as a heavily forested nature preserve that is located in the foothills of a politically and culturally sensitive region of the continent (in a greater Blue Ridge Mountains region that is often fiercely protected by local residents and local, regional and national environmentalists alike), along with the continuing fierce opposition of Delta Airlines to the construction of a second major airport in the Atlanta region, has been a growing roadblock to that land being converted into a Northside airport.
I think that the construction and opening of a second, smaller airport in a location like an area north of Alpharetta would be a good idea.
It's just that the highly affluent residents of an upscale Northside region like North Fulton/west Forsyth/east Cherokee counties likely would never allow the construction of a second Atlanta airport in or near their neighborhoods.
… The construction of a second major airport that they have the financial resources and extensive political connections to easily prevent.
… Not unlike how many of those affluent Northside residents used their financial resources and extensive political connections to stop the construction of a proposed Northern Arc superhighway that they strongly opposed back in the early 2000's.
I also agree with other posters who say that Dobbins Air Reserve Base would be a good candidate to be the site of a second major Atlanta airport.
But the potential challenge with converting Dobbins into a second major airport to serve Northside residents is that Dobbins (which was originally named Dobbins Air Force Base and was the site of a naval air station, NAS Atlanta) was downgraded to an Air Reserve Base in 1992 apparently because of concerns for the safety of adjacent and surrounding neighborhoods after multiple military plane crashes during attempted takeoffs and landings in the 1980's and early 1990's.
If Dobbins were proposed to be converted into a second major commercial airport for the Atlanta region, the concerns about the safety of adjacent neighborhoods would most assuredly again become a major issue along with concerns about the affects of airplane noise on neighborhoods in the flight path of Dobbins' runways, opposition to the plan, etc.
It should be noted that the idea of constructing a second major commercial airport to serve Northside residents is not a recent idea, but appears to be an idea that goes back decades, even before World War II.
Dobbins was originally proposed in 1940 as a commercial airfield that was intended to be a Northside alternative to then-Candler Field (now Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport).
But the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II in 1941 necessitated that Dobbins be used for national defense, both as an air force base and as the site of a massive military aircraft factory that eventually became Lockheed.
The start of the decades-long Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in the late 1940's and America's entry into the heated Korean War conflict in 1950, along with the explosive growth that the massive Lockheed facility generated in areas around and adjacent to Dobbins, negated any possibility of the Dobbins facility being converted into a second major commercial airport to serve the Northside of the Atlanta region.
It should also be noted that in 1971 the City of Atlanta purchased more than 10,000 acres of land in then far-flung Dawson County in the forested Appalachian foothills of North Georgia with the intent of eventually constructing a second major airport to serve Northside residents.
… But the status of that land as a heavily forested nature preserve that is located in the foothills of a politically and culturally sensitive region of the continent (in a greater Blue Ridge Mountains region that is often fiercely protected by local residents and local, regional and national environmentalists alike), along with the continuing fierce opposition of Delta Airlines to the construction of a second major airport in the Atlanta region, has been a growing roadblock to that land being converted into a Northside airport.
give it to southwest, then delta will have extra capacity.
I don't know if you remember this, but Southwest tried to come into Charlie Brown/Fulton County years ago. The neighborhoods around there freaked out, and of course nothing ever came of it. This was probably in the early 90's.
I don't know if you remember this, but Southwest tried to come into Charlie Brown/Fulton County years ago. The neighborhoods around there freaked out, and of course nothing ever came of it. This was probably in the early 90's.
In addition to Southwest trying to come into Charlie Brown/Fulton County Airport back in the early-'90's, Southwest was also at least rumored to be a motivating force for airport expansion attempts in Paulding and Gwinnett counties earlier this decade before Southwest got into the Atlanta market it had long coveted by purchasing AirTran.
In addition to being strongly opposed by Delta, the Paulding Airport expansion attempt was dealt a setback when the Paulding County commissioners that supported it were voted out of office (circa-2014) after public backlash by a overdevelopment-averse Paulding voting public... A Paulding County voting public that seems to have fears of the county becoming as developed as neighboring Cobb County like some of the business leaders in Paulding County seem to desire.
The Gwinnett airport expansion attempt fell apart because of a combination of factors, including intense public opposition to possible airport expansion, a series of ethics scandals involving Gwinnett County commissioners (including some that came under federal scrutiny) and the acquisition of AirTran by Southwest back in 2011.
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