Everyday travelers are the stars on Hartsfield-Jackson’s new video wall

The reason: The airport has built a new elevator bank in front of the escalators, blocking the view that people waiting for their friends or family once had of the crowds of arriving passengers.

Instead, passengers pop out of the escalator area on the sides, leaving some meeter-greeters glancing back and forth to search for their loved ones as passengers flow out to the right and left.

The giant screen installed in mid-April now shows people as they come up the escalators — which may be a comforting verisimilitude of a past reality, familiar to Atlantans who remember when they could stand in the arrivals hall and see actual escalators and real people walking toward them.

For others, it may seem like an odd form of visual art to watch a video of what is occurring on escalators behind the screen.

When a train has not just arrived with a load of passengers, the screen just shows empty escalators.

Credit: Kelly Yamanouchi

Credit: Kelly Yamanouchi

For the airport, the video screen is a way to ensure that people who haven’t gone through security screening can wait on the opposite side of the corridor while keeping a keen eye out for their arriving loved ones — instead of approaching the “Do not enter” passageways to escalators and elevators that connect to the secure concourses for ticketed passengers.

The new elevator bank opens in early May.