Regular readers may be tired of me pointing this out, but for those of you new here, I don’t live in New York or Los Angeles. I live in Atlanta. How, Atlanta Atlanta, not Cumming or Alpharetta. I can literally see the Bank of America building from where I am sitting right now. I also grew up in Georgia, which means I Atlanta airport for as long as I can remember. Granted, I didn’t fly much until I was 20, but Hartsfield-Jackson is my airport and I’m sick of people saying it sucks.
To be clear, this is nothing new. I’ve heard complaints about Hartsfield-Jackson since it was not called Hartsfield-Jackson (and oh boy, did the same people complain when they changed the name). I just never understood them either. Sure, the security lines can be long sometimes, but other than that, the layout makes sense and is easy to navigate, there’s an airplane train that gets you between terminals quickly, and there are plenty of restaurants near each gate. As airports go, it’s actually pretty great.
I understand that business travelers probably hate Atlanta because they have to change planes all the time. Nobody likes to be stuck in the same airport for their 30th layover a year. Those people are entitled to complain. But you know who doesn’t get to complain? The people who don’t take the airplane train. It’s a big international airport. It’s designed to be big. They also knew it was going to be big, and they built the airplane train to solve that problem.
Back when I had a Priority Pass membership through a credit card, the only lounge I had access to was at the very end of the line in the international terminal. I would regularly drive to Terminal F, stay in the lounge until maybe 15 minutes before my flight was due to board, jump back on the plane train, and get to my gate with no issues. Sometimes I even have my driver drop me off at the international terminal just to get through security faster. It’s fast. It’s convenient!
And yet, a few years ago, when my parents flew to Italy, their flight was moved from the international terminal to one of the others. One of the couples travelling with my parents called them, upset because it took so long to get to the new gate. WHAT?!?! This is a completely pointless decision that also makes absolutely no sense. People walk between terminals to stretch their legs or kill time, not because it’s efficient.
And they’re not the only ones who do. If you look at any Reddit thread mentioning Atlanta’s airport, you’ll read comment after comment about how awful it is and how forever it takes to get to your gate. If you’re used to only ever flying out of tiny regional airports, the size can be intimidating, but that’s not Atlanta’s problem. And you definitely don’t need at least two hours for your layover. You just have to take the plane train, and I’m sick of people acting like that’s too big a ask.
Ultimately, we’re still talking about an airport here, so it’s never going to be a wonderful experience. The best you can usually hope for is that your experience is somewhat decent. Supposedly the Centurion Lounge is pretty cool, but I don’t know that because I’ve never been there. However, having flown to and through more airports than I can count over the past 10 years, I can tell you that Atlanta is far from the worst. If you refuse to use the airplane train, that’s your business.
