ATLANTA — The world's busiest airport is making some extra space for its famous "plane train."
Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is so large that it has a train to help take travelers to their gates. Now 60-feet below the airport, construction crews are working on an 833-foot extension of the tunnel.
Clark Construction is carving out the extra space, blasting and drilling as the airport still has thousands of travelers taking flight. The project is part of the city's ATLNext program.
City and airport leaders say the Plane Train Tunnel West Extension project will increase capacity and expedite travel for the train system's 250,000 daily riders.
"That means that we can carry during peak period instead of 10,000 passengers per direction, per hour, that number will increase to 12,000 passengers per direction, per hour," Tom Nissakle said, Assistant General Manager, Planning and Development, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Crews have made headway on the project with limited disruption to the current plane trains operations, however, they did not say when the extension would be done.