When the pandemic was declared last March, passenger traffic at the Atlanta airport dropped by 97 percent in a matter of weeks.
Leaders at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport knew the drop was devastatingly deep, but they didn’t know how long it would last.
“We thought in 60 days this will be over with. Then it was 90 days. No one predicted that this would be sustaining,” said Balram “B” Bheodari, the newly appointed general manager, who was serving as the deputy GM as COVID-19 swept the world.
The airport embarked on a cost-cutting spree, reducing operating expenditures as revenue dried up from passenger facility charges and parking. Executives began renegotiating service and concession contracts, reevaluating financial commitments during what became an eerie lull for what had been the world’s busiest airport for decades running.
Passenger numbers continued to stay low throughout 2020, while cargo flights boomed as medical equipment and other goods were shuttled in amid a spike in e-commerce.
“In the meantime, we did not want to button up everything. We made a conscious decision that we would continue with our capital program, so one thing we did was put safety protocol in place, because we needed those employees to be healthy. And once we installed and implemented those safety protocols, we continued,” said Mr. Bheodari, who took the helm as interim general manager after the departure of John Selden, who left Atlanta for Saudi Arabia in April. Mr. Bheodari’s position was made permanent in June.
Mr. Bheodari has spent nearly 20 years in Atlanta in two stints, returning to ATL in 2018 after two years in Houston that culminated with him serving as chief operating officer of the Houston Airport System.
In the Global Atlanta interview, he referred to the Atlanta airport’s $6 billion Capital Improvement Program, parts of which were accelerated during the pandemic as workers were able to spend longer hours on airport job sites that normally would have been blocked by passengers. Federal recovery funds also helped keep the projects flowing. More than $400 million in invoice value has been completed since last March, from the addition of five gates at the T Concourse to the construction of the ATL West parking deck to the expansion of the south security checkpoint.
“Because our finances are structured long term, we did not have an immediate impact,” said Mr. Bheodari, who is no stranger to large projects, having worked on the car-rental facility and later, the international terminal.
“From a financial perspective, the airport is very healthy; (the pandemic) did not impact our capital program. And thank goodness, because we started seeing a resurgence in January and February, when the vaccinations started rolling out.”
That changed the game, he said, and as of this month, passenger numbers across all categories were at about 70-75 percent of pre-pandemic levels, driven by a strong outpouring of pent-up leisure demand.
“However, the two lagging measure in those numbers are our business travelers and international travelers,” Mr. Bheodari said, echoing his predecessor.
While some destinations, especially in Europe, have reopened to vaccinated Americans, cross-border travel remains hindered by uneven entry and exit requirements around the world and a persistent pandemic that is playing out differently in various countries. The U.S., for instance, still bans entry by travelers who have been in Europe’s Schengen Area within the last 14 days.
With cases on the rise as the COVID-19 Delta variant propagates, the uncertainty has yet depress to depress the travel recovery; as of a few weeks back, the airport was starting to see an uptick in business travelers reflected in security checkpoint data, Mr. Bheodari said, even as locally active airlines were reporting that business bookings were back to 35-40 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
“What we’re hearing from our trade associations and us as a group of CEOs within the industry, there are strong discussions that the business community wants to get back out on the road and want to meet their clients and re-establish that face-to-face relationship,” he told Global Atlanta, noting that those who fall behind on this front could lose out on deals to those who are more aggressive.
“If I was a betting man, my bet would be that business travel would come back. Will it be 100 percent of pre-COVID-19? That is hard to predict. But I think business travel will be strong,” he said.
The return international segment will be tougher to gauge, given how both the prevalence of the both virus and vaccination rates are so unevenly spread around the world.
But Mr. Bheodari provided some insight on how the airport will approach international route development under his leadership. Much of Atlanta’s attractiveness for flights will depend on tourism, conventions and business, and with the arrival of more international companies, those metrics start to tilt more in favor of starting new flights. He sees a lot of potential in the emerging markets of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean — and perhaps some eventual new service from Scandinavian countries.
Still, he stressed, airlines use a complicated set of factors to decide where to deploy their planes. The overall cost of operations for a route versus the projected revenue is key; filling a plane is not always the answer, which is perhaps one reason Atlanta still lacks nonstop service to India despite ample demand in the community.
From the airport’s side, Atlanta’s advantages — two-hour connections to 80 percent of the U.S. population, low landing fees, unrestricted landing slots and more — will continue to be key variables in that equation, he said.
In the meantime, Hartsfield-Jackson will work to cement the cargo gains it has achieved during the pandemic, as dedicated freighters have increased service to a passenger-heavy airport where cargo has not been as big of a priority. One enduring effect from the pandemic, Mr. Bheodari said, will be the rise of e-commerce.
“I believe e-commerce will only continue to grow. After this pandemic is over you will see a shift from the demand for medical supplies and PPE to household needs and other goods and services, but it’s here to stay,” he said. “We have to make accommodation for that, and right now … we’re already in the solicitation process to seek a developer, a private-public partnership, to build modern cargo facility to strengthen our cargo operations.”
While he knows there’s “always transition in leadership,” Mr. Bheodari didn’t come back to Atlanta intent on landing the airport’s top job.
“To tell you the truth, if you asked me if I was set on being at the helm of the airport at the time, that thought didn’t enter mind.”
His return was based on the long-term vision illustrated by the massive projects he’s now leading.
“I thought I could make the big difference coming back to Atlanta here, especially when I looked at the 2015 master plan, the airport use and lease agreement that was put in place, and what we’re looking at in terms of developing this airport for the future, for the next 20 to 30 years. It was very attractive to come back here to be a part of all of that.”
Learn more about Mr. Bheodari here.