[nergie]

Rail Claimore,

I was not complaining about ATL, rather finding it hard to believe that an airport that constantly performs in the bottom 5% of on-time statistics is not subject to similar caps if it works at O'Hare.

I agree the airport is a well designed and planned, it also was built in the late 70's unlike O'Hare.

I disagree with AirTran's position. ALT is driven by Delta and it is over 85%, and as for DFW prior to Delta's reduction it had a similar split as ATL. Air Tran does not bring in nearly the connecting passengers that Delta does and I find it hard to believe people think that 15% of an Airport's total flight is considered large. Honestly, in traditional term 15% is a focus city not really large scale hub. Atlanta lives and dies with Delta, as you say it is an important domestic airport but if the Airport does not have the connecting passegeners several INTL flights will be lost. Besides NYC, CHI, SF, MIA and LA, there are very few INTL markets in the US that can be sustained by the local population. Most of the mid-continent INTL airports such as MSP,DET and DFW are driven by connecting passengers brought in because they are large hubs. ATL is no different.