admin
Forbes recently sat down with Ricky Smith, the executive who runs Hartsfield‑Jackson Atlanta International Airport, for a clear-eyed look at the airport business model and how one hub can drive an entire region. Smith laid out numbers that should make every taxpayer sit up straight: Atlanta’s airport is responsible for roughly a $66.7 billion annual economic footprint, a staggering return on the public and private investment that keeps America moving.
This isn’t abstract economics — it’s real jobs for real people. Hartsfield-Jackson supports tens of thousands of onsite jobs and hundreds of thousands more across the region, from airline crews to hotel staff and the small businesses that depend on steady passenger traffic. Those are the kinds of employment statistics that conservatives point to when we argue for sensible infrastructure stewardship and local control over bloated federal meddling.
Smith’s explanation of the airport’s revenue streams should be a lesson for policymakers: airports make money through landing fees, concessions, parking, property leases and increasingly through cargo — not by printing money or expanding government bureaucracy. He’s pushing cargo growth and small‑business concession programs while the airport continues long‑term capital plans under ATLNext, showing how targeted investment and market thinking can expand capacity without surrendering to leftist nostrums about top‑down control.
It’s worth noting that the political class occasionally eyes major assets like ATL as trophies for state or federal power play, but local leadership and private operators deliver the efficiency and economic benefit that citizens actually want. When senators and politicians talk about protecting or seizing control, it should remind us that the default should be empowering local officials and entrepreneurs who understand regional economies, not more centralized interference in how airports operate.
Ricky Smith’s rise from Baltimore to the helm of the world’s busiest airport is the kind of American success story conservatives celebrate: grit, career progression, and a focus on results rather than ideology. He talks about creating pathways into aviation careers — apprenticeships, concessions opportunities, and workforce training — which is exactly where conservatives should be pushing resources instead of endless handouts.
If we want to keep America competitive, the lesson from ATL is simple: support infrastructure that produces measurable economic returns, open doors for small business, and let market incentives reward efficiency. Hardworking Americans don’t want showy federal posturing or virtue signaling; they want functioning airports that create jobs, move goods, and keep the economy humming — and leaders like Smith show how that is done in the real world.
