Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Thursday that Balram Bheodari, a long-time Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport executive, will take over as the airport’s interim general manager.
Manager John Selden is stepping down Friday to take another job.
Bottoms said in a written statement that Bheodari has decades of experience.
“I am confident that with his operations expertise, he will keep Hartsfield-Jackson running smoothly as we recover from this global pandemic,” she said.
Bheodari had been deputy general manager of operations at Hartsfield-Jackson. He served as interim general manager once before in 2018 before Selden was brought in.
Bhedoari started working at the Atlanta airport in 1999. He briefly left for a role as general manager of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston in 2015, but returned the following year.
At Hartsfield-Jackson, Bheodari has overseen public safety and security, operations, maintenance and transportation, planning and development, as well as sustainability, asset management and facilities.
In a written statement, he said he looks forward “to continuing our tradition of excellence in safety, efficiency, and economic development for the city and region.”
Before joining the Atlanta airport, Bheodari retired from the U.S. Army, where he was a helicopter pilot and led a team writing military doctrines and regulations.
He was born in Guyana and moved to the United States at the age of 19. He earned a degree in aviation management from Troy University.
Selden is leaving for a position as CEO of the Neom airport development company in Saudi Arabia.
He addressed the World Affairs Council of Atlanta on Thursday, saying domestic travel is recovering, but it could take until mid-2022 for international travel to recover.
Before the pandemic, international travel made up less than 12% of total traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson, but could hold potential for future growth, according to Selden.
“Our international piece is one of the most critical pieces, as you look forward, for Hartsfield-Jackson to work on,” he said.
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