Atlanta will continue its substantial borrowing through the municipal bond market for the world's busiest airport next week when it prices $1.1 billion of municipal bonds.
The bonds are rated AA by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings and AA-plus by KBRA — in each case at the highest rating they issue for U.S. airport revenue bonds.
While not rating this deal, Moody's Ratings rates the airport's general revenue bonds Aa3. All the ratings have stable outlooks. The bonds are secured by a senior lien on the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport's general revenues.
The bonds will be sold by negotiation with BofA Securities and Siebert Williams Shank as senior managers, and BofA as book runner. Jefferies, Ramirez & Co., Truist Securities, Bancroft Capital, Cabrera Capital Markets, Fidelity Capital Markets, Oppenheimer & Co., and Security Capital Brokerage are co-managers.
The bonds come in four series: $317 million in Series 2026A-1 non-alternative minimum tax green bonds, $73 million in Series 2026A-2 non-AMT bonds, $372 million in Series 2026B-1 AMT green bonds and $327 million in Series 2026B-2 AMT bonds. All four series have serial maturities 2027 to 2046 and term maturities in 2051 and 2056.
The bonds are scheduled to price Tuesday. They will be paid for through and are secured by a senior lien on airport general revenues.
The airport
The airport has a $13.1 billion capital program covering fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2032. With the planned $1.1 billion deal, the airport will have $5.3 billion in debt outstanding, KBRA said. KBRA expects the airport's debt outstanding to increase to $7.7 billion in 2033.
"The current five-year capital improvement plan is sizable and relies mainly on bond proceeds," Fitch said in a report on the airport in late July.
Asked if investors still have an
The ratings agencies highlight the airport's reliance on Delta Air Lines for 80% of its enplanement market share as a credit concern. However, they say Delta is unlikely to leave the airport, since its headquarters is located there and is unlikely to go out of business because it is doing well.
"The airport's exposure to Delta Air Lines, Inc. (Baa2 stable) in terms of carrier concentration and connecting traffic risk is mitigated by the importance of the airport to the airline, the challenges related to accommodating such large volumes of transfer traffic at another domestic airport, a 20-year lease agreement, and competitive actual and forecasted cost per enplanement," Moody's said in August 2025.
"The equity market is viewing the Delta operations and finances as quite strong," Hallacy said, noting that it was trading near its 52 week high. "Among the airlines, it is considered a top operator. Yes, it is the dominant carrier. If they were to falter another name or names would quickly fill the void. At this point, contemplating bankruptcy is not a real possibility."
Delta did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005,
While the airport is heavily dependent on Delta, "it is manageable and though any setback for Delta would certainly hurt the perception of the airport, Atlanta is super important to Delta and is their main hub," said John Mousseau, executive vice president and chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors. "And traffic just keeps growing at the airport."
Concerning the potential impact of lawsuits, Bhanu Patil, managing partner at SunBright Advisory Partners, said, "While Delta isn't immune to lawsuits, a combination of liability caps, substantial insurance coverage, contractual protections, and strong financial resources makes it highly unlikely that any one lawsuit would put Delta out of business."
Atlanta Hartsfield was the busiest airport in the world by passenger count in 2025, with 106.3 million enplanements, ahead of Dubai, Tokyo Haneda and Dallas Fort Worth International, according to
Some of the rating agencies raise concerns that 58.1% of total enplanements in fiscal year 2025 were connecting traffic, largely through Delta's hub operation. KBRA said this exposed the airport to the air carriers' decisions and was less assured than relying on origination and destination trips.
"Origination and destination will continue to grow as [the] population of the region grows," Hallacy said. "Given the hub operations, connecting traffic should remain strong."
Mousseau said he wasn't concerned about the high level of connecting traffic. "Of all the big hub airports (and I have flown a lot in my career), Atlanta is the easiest to get around because of their rail system. It's a strength, not a concern."
Patil said, "While connecting traffic is more carrier-dependent and less assured than origination and destination traffic, … Atlanta's strategic Southeast location and connectivity to Europe, Latin American and across the U.S. make that traffic highly durable and not easily replicated by competing hubs."
Atlanta's airport lost 9.4% of its capital funding, at least temporarily, in September
The Trump administration is requiring local entities to disavow DEI policies as a condition to receive federal grants for transportation and housing and Atlanta refused to do this. In February Atlanta joined other cities suing the Trump administration over its denial of grants to cities with DEI programs.
"We are seeing interest from a broad cross-section of the municipal market," Atlanta Treasurer C. Courtney Knight told The Bond Buyer. "Demand is expected to come from traditional municipal bond mutual funds, exchange traded bonds, dedicated Alternative Minimum Tax investors, insurance companies, separately managed accounts and other institutional investors."
When asked about the possible impact of recent increases in Treasury rates on the long end of the municipal bond curve, Knight said, "While higher long-term Treasury yields can create some headwinds for longer-dated municipal bonds, investor demand for high-quality essential-purpose infrastructure credits has generally remained resilient… We believe the airport's strong credit fundamentals and broad investor appeal should help support interest across the maturity spectrum, including the longer maturities."
In explaining its AA rating of the airport, Fitch said it was the world's busiest airport in terms of enplanements. The airport is supported by the region's economy and Delta Air Lines' global hubbing operations. The bonds' dependency on fluctuating passenger facility revenues "is partially offset by strong passenger facility charge fund balances and high annual collection levels."
Fitch said its rating is supported by low cost per enplanement levels relative to large international airports and strong financial metrics. The airport's lack of regional competition also boosts its credit.
As for weaknesses, Fitch mentioned the sizable debt-financed capital plan and Delta's 80% market share. Fitch has a BBB-minus rating and positive outlook on Delta.
In its rating report, KBRA noted the Atlanta Department of Aviation's "capable" leadership. It said the airport had 4.6% more enplaned passengers in fiscal year 2025 than it did in fiscal 2019.
KBRA said the airport's "financial operations are solid, underpinned by a long-duration (through 2036) hybrid airport use and lease agreement that provides for stable residual rate setting on the airfield and compensatory rate setting in the terminal."
"Given [the airport's] importance to Delta's network operations, along with the carrier's strong yields and significant investment in airport facilities, KBRA continues to view the risk of a material pulldown of operations by Delta at [the airport], and the associated loss of passenger traffic, as remote," KBRA said.
One of the airport's credit positives is, "management's willingness to adjust revenue, expenses and capital spending to protect sound financial operations while operating the busiest airport in the world and planning for required capital spending to maintain assets and plan for growth," S&P wrote in its July report.
Though the airport has several positive financial statistics, its debt service coverage was 1.4 times in fiscal year 2025, lower than S&P's 2.0 median level for AA category airports in 2024. Its ratio of cash reserves to debt in fiscal 2025, 20%, was also lower than the fiscal 2024 median for S&P AA category airports, 30%.
Kestrel is the independent verifier of the green bond designation.
Frasca & Associates is the municipal advisor on the deal.
Hunton Andrews Kurth and Johnson & Freeman, both based in Atlanta, are the co-bond counsel.
Proceeds from the bond sale will primarily be used for various capital projects, such as widening and expanding Concourse D and phase 2 of building the South Domestic Terminal parking deck. Some of the money will also be used for redeeming portions of 2025 commercial paper notes and 2024 and 2025 notes.
