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The William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is the world's busiest airport handling some 80 million passengers annually and serves major international and domestic markets around the globe. The airfield itself consists of roughly 4,200,000 sq m (5,000,000 sq yds) of pavement and includes 4 parallel runways measuring from 2,740 to 3,620 m (9,000 to 11,889 ft) long. Runway 9R-27L was initially constructed over 27 years ago and has been in service well beyond its design life. Due to pavement deterioration accelerated by alkali-silica reactivity (ASR) and other distress, the owner decided to remove Runway 9R-27L in late 1999 under a fast-track 36 day schedule. A joint venture of major contractors bid $ 52 million to complete the project under this fast track approach. A conventional approach was estimated to cost between $ 15 and $ 20 million without factoring the impact of a closed runway at some $ 475,000 per day over a normal 6 month construction timeframe.