The world’s busiest airport is coming to market with a more than $1 billion municipal bond sale, boosting issuance in the lagging airport sector.
Atlanta’s borrowing will help finance infrastructure improvements at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a cornerstone hub for Delta Air Lines, Inc. The city plans to issue about $699 million of bonds subject to the alternative-minimum tax, and roughly $391 million of non-AMT bonds, according to bond documents.
The jumbo sale, expected to price Tuesday, comes as muni issuance in the airport sector hovers at roughly $10 billion so far this year, about 28% lower than at this point last year. In 2025, borrowers financed a slew of large airport projects at major hubs like Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. Those mega deals — at or above $1 billion each — made for a blockbuster year for airport issuance with nearly $24 billion sold.
“There aren’t very large projects and needs for capital financing at the moment, and so therefore they’re not in the frequency of issuing because they don’t need to,” said Andrew Clinton, chief executive officer of Clinton Investment Management, referring to airport infrastructure.
Muni bond sales hit roughly $570 billion in 2025, around 15% more than the year before, with a large portion pricing in the first half of the year as municipalities raced to sell debt to avoid any changes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump last July.
“This rush was particularly acute for sectors exposed to potential changes in private activity bond rules, shifts in federal funding or alterations to the baseline municipal tax exemption — all areas where airport issuers were highly vulnerable,” said Matthew Gastall, head of municipal research and strategy for Bloomberg Intelligence. “Despite elevated fuel costs and broader economic headwinds, infrastructure investment across the airport sector remains exceptionally healthy.”
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As for the Hartsfield-Jackson airport, it last tapped the muni market in September for around $1 billion to finance capital improvements and fund deposits to reserve accounts and construction funds. The airport, consistently ranked the world’s busiest by passenger traffic, is in the midst of a roughly $13 billion facelift to boost capacity and modernize infrastructure, according to bond documents.
For the latest sale, some of the bonds subject to AMT maturing in July 2036 are being offered to investors at a yield of 3.84% with a 5% coupon, according to preliminary pricing wires seen by Bloomberg. That’s about 60 basis points over the benchmark. Atlanta is designating two series of the issue as “green bonds,” according to bond documents.