Hartsfield Jobs Taking Off

Fast Forward recently visited Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. No, we weren’t catching a flight. As usual our team was on the hunt for the coolest jobs in Georgia. And Hartsfield might just have been the mother load. Not only is it the busiest airport in the world (that’s right, I said ‘world’), it’s also the largest employer in the state of Georgia. And even with the 58,000 employees they keep track of, Hartsfield was nice enough to open up their doors for a few Fast Forward misfits.

“58,000 jobs?” you say? “They must have gotten somebody extremely important to write that episode!” Thank you for the compliment, vocal reader. As a matter of fact, this is the second episode in my Fast Forward repertoire. Let the outrage commence.

If you’re like me, you wonder about the big questions, like how the airport keeps birds off the runways. The answer, of course, is pyrotechnics—also known as fireworks. They’re a non-lethal way to move all sorts of curious critters out of potential flight paths.

We interviewed several Hartsfield employees, and they love their jobs. Probably because when you have 260,000 passengers pass through your office every day you’re bound to meet some interesting people. They even took us out on the runways so we could see some of those satisfied customers take off and land.

Hartsfield is a big place, and I couldn’t possibly fit everything into one blog. So if you’ve ever wondered how many flights Hartsfield has, or how to how many countries they fly, or even why their runways are parallel, keep an eye out for Fast Forward’s new episode on Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.