As the national search for a leader of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport stretches past its December deadline, Atlanta City Council members have re-upped complaints that the role does not pay enough to attract top candidates.
And Mayor Andre Dickens agrees. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he plans to ask the council to approve a more “competitive” salary for the new general manager and other top airport positions in the “very near term.”
The person running the world’s busiest airport makes $306,000 annually, the city’s human resources commissioner told council members in committee last week. That’s “woefully” below market, Councilmember Marci Collier Overstreet responded.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Last summer the city hired a recruitment firm to replace exiting GM Balram Bheodari and promised to fill the position by the end of 2024. Jan Lennon, a veteran airport executive, has been serving as interim general manager since Bheodari left in June.
Compensation for Atlanta’s airport leader is lower than in many major cities, but higher than others, including Chicago’s airport commissioner.
Dickens said the city is in the “final stages” of the hiring process but declined to say exactly how much of a raise he would seek so as not to compromise negotiations.
“But we are increasing the salary to be able to be competitive,” he said. “I think that this is a very hard job, the general manager, and they just need to be paid fairly — competitively. The council and I are committed to making that so in the very near term.”
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JSPINK@AJC.COM
The GM reports to the mayor, oversees a $316 million budget and manages about 800 employees. On top of the pay and high-profile pressure, historically the job has also involved grappling with corruption scandals and navigating city politics.
Last year, the Tampa, Florida, airport CEO made more than $1.1 million, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
In 2023 the CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International, the world’s third-busiest airport, saw his income jump to roughly $825,000 in salary and bonus, the Dallas Morning News reported.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul airports commission is considering a salary bump for its CEO to stay competitive, and his pay already sits at more than $445,000, according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
‘Time for us to figure this out’
Many city, civic and business leaders have complained about the position’s pay for years, even though the GM already makes about $100,000 more than their boss: the mayor.
“It’s an old issue and I just think that it’s time for us to figure this out,” Overstreet told the AJC, confirming she has the appetite to approve a salary increase.
“We’ve lost talent because of it,” she said.
She argued the city has been “lucky” finding GMs thus far despite the low pay and said airport operations haven’t suffered as a result. “They stay out of loyalty and being part of something that’s bigger than themselves.”
Councilmember Howard Shook agreed with Overstreet in committee last week, saying he’s complained about it before. “Unless we want Salt Lake City’s assistant deputy, we have to significantly increase this salary,” he said.
A 2022 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette analysis found that the Atlanta airport leader’s salary ranked 11th among peers. Pittsburgh’s own airport authority CEO made $600,000 plus a bonus in 2024. (Her 2023 bonus was more than $250,000.)
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Overstreet said the airport GM’s compensation should also be structured in a contract with bonus incentives.
Typically, municipalities don’t offer such contracts to employees, she explained. But other airports owned by quasi-independent authorities do. (The state-run Georgia Ports Authority CEO, for example, makes about $1.4 million.)
Indeed, other U.S. city-run airport leaders’ pay also lags. Chicago’s aviation commissioner overseeing O’Hare and Midway airports has a salary around $292,000, and Denver International Airport’s CEO made about $350,000 in 2022, Axios Denver reported.
Plus, Atlanta is facing competition from well-funded, state-sponsored Middle Eastern airports, not to mention past threats of an airport takeover by the state of Georgia, Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari warned in committee.
“Given that we do have the busiest airport in the world … I don’t think this is an area where we want to mess up,” Bakhtiari said.
Former Atlanta airport leader John Selden left to run a Saudi Arabian airport development company in 2021, where the SaportaReport at the time reported he would be making three to four times his Atlanta salary.
“We should be paying our GM half a million a year so that we attract and find the best candidate from around the world,” Councilmember Matt Westmoreland said.
“That’s what the world’s busiest and most efficient airport should have.”
— Staff writer Riley Bunch contributed to this report.
