Court Opinion

ID: 9586521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:12:23.037852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:42.002100
License: Public Domain

Almand, Justice,
dissenting. The Atlanta Municipal Airport is owned, operated and maintained under the provisions of the Uniform Airports Law (Title 11-2 of the Code of 1933). Under this law a municipality is authorized “separately or jointly, to acquire, establish, construct, expand, own, lease, control, equip, improve, maintain, operate, regulate and police airports and landing fields for the use of aircraft, either within or without the geographical limits of such [municipality] . . . and may use for such purpose or purposes any available property that is now or may at any time hereafter be owned or controlled by such [municipality].” Code Ann. § 11-201. Code § 11-202 provides: “Any lands acquired, owned, leased, controlled, or occupied by such . . . [municipality] for the purpose or purposes enumerated in section 11-201, shall and are hereby declared to be acquired, owned, leased, controlled, or occupied for public, governmental, and municipal purposes.” This court in Sigman v. Brunswick Port Authority, 214 Ga. 332 (2) (104 SE2d 467), held: “Property used for the purpose of public convenience and welfare in the matters of public travel and transportation and to *23facilitate public transportation and as a dock or port operation, to provide buildings which the users of the port may lease, and in which to store and process commodities transported by water, is in the aid of commerce, and is for the promotion of public transportation, public commerce, and general welfare, and may properly be classified as public property and therefore exempt from taxation.”
Delta Airlines under a permit or license from the City of Atlanta uses the airport in the operation of its airline service in the transportation of passengers and freight. Many of the facilities and services on the property of the airport, essential to the operation of the airport, are carried on by private persons or corporations under lease, permit or license from the city. The maintenance and repair of airplanes is just as essential to operation of an airport as the maintenance of a passenger terminal and runways for the takeoff and landing of planes. See City of Dayton v. Haines, 156 Ohio St. 366 (102 NE2d 590), and City of Toledo v. Jenkins, 143 Ohio St. 141 (54 NE2d 656).
Being of the opinion that the leasehold interest of Delta in public property and its use by Delta is for governmental, public and municipal purposes I therefore conclude that it is not subject to taxation.