Five years since they first linked up, the City of Atlanta and the metropolitan area surrounding the Paris airport have renewed a partnership centered on development around their respective aviation hubs.
Mayor Kasim Reed signed the updated agreement with Franck Cannarozzo, deputy mayor of d’Aulnay-sous-bois, a town in the Paris airport region, in the Atlanta mayor’s ceremonial office Tuesday.
The agreement recounts past successes in the relationship, including the Sustainable Airport Area seminar, while highlighting continued areas for collaboration throughout the remainder of Mr. Reed’s term, or the end of 2017.
The metro areas had agreed to jointly sell their destinations to aviation-dependent investors in third countries and agreed to establish a network of airport areas focused on the sharing of best practices. Paris looped Atlanta into at least one event in China, a seminar at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport.
“Actions undertaken within this framework have been intended to benefit each of these airport hubs, generating new economic activity and creating jobs in their respective territories,” the agreement reads.
Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport is home to Air France-KLM’s main hub, along with the European cargo hub of FedEx. Atlanta has the most-travelled passenger hub in the world, as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport last year became the first to eclipse 100 million travelers per year. The idea behind the partnership is that airport areas have similar strengths, appealing to companies that require speed and connectivity. They also drive investment in their broader metro regions.
Atlanta recently launched the Aerotropolis Atlanta, while Paris has long had Hubstart Paris Region, a joint marketing agency encompassing territories around the airport. The signing comes two days before a business seminar that fulfills its purpose: How to do Business in Greater Paris, where presenters will focus on new infrastructure developments and business opportunities in the Paris region. The free event will be held at the Invest Atlanta offices. Registration is required here.
This year’s Sustainable Airport Area seminar, held Sept. 21-22, is focused on human resources.
The event picks up on one major legacy of the memorandum of understanding: the Sustainable Airport Area seminar, which Global Atlanta covered in its early years.
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