Regular readers may be tired of me pointing this out, but for those of you who are new here, I don’t live in New York or Los Angeles. I live in Atlanta. Like, Atlanta Atlanta, not Cumming or Alpharetta. I can literally see the Bank of America building from where I’m sitting right now. I also grew up in Georgia, which means I’ve been flying out of the Atlanta airport for as long as I can remember. Granted, I didn’t do a lot of flying until I was in my 20s, but Hartsfield-Jackson is my airport, and I’m tired of people saying it sucks.
To be clear, this isn’t anything new. I’ve been hearing complaints about Hartsfield-Jackson since before it was Hartsfield-Jackson (and hooo boy did those same people also complain when they changed the name). I also just never understood them. Sure, security lines can be long sometimes, but outside of that, the layout makes sense and is easy to navigate, there’s a plane train that quickly carries you between terminals, and you’ve got plenty of dining options close to every gate. It’s actually pretty great as far as airports go.
Now, I understand frequent business travelers probably hate Atlanta because they’re constantly connecting through. No one likes hanging out in the same airport for their 30th layover of the year. Those people are allowed to complain. You know who’s not allowed to complain, though? The people who don’t take the plane train. It’s a major international airport. It’s going to be big by design. They also knew that it was big and built the plane train to solve that problem.
Back when I still had a Priority Pass membership through a credit card, the only lounge I had access to was in the international terminal all the way at the end of the line. I would regularly ride out to Terminal F, hang out in the lounge until maybe 15 minutes before my flight started boarding, hop back on the plane train and get to my gate without an issue. Sometimes, I even have my ride drop me off at the international terminal just to get through security faster. It’s quick. It’s convenient!
And yet, when my parents went to Italy a few years ago, their flight got changed from the international terminal to one of the others. One of the couples that was traveling with my parents called them frazzled because it was taking so long to walk to the new gate. WHAT?!?! That is an absolutely unhinged decision that also makes absolutely no sense. Walking between terminals is something you do because you want to stretch your legs or kill time, not because it’s efficient.
They’re not the only ones to do this either. Go on any Reddit thread where the Atlanta airport comes up, and you’ll see comment after comment about how awful it is and how it takes forever to get to your gate. If you’re used to only ever flying out of tiny regional airports, I guess the size could be intimidating, but that’s not Atlanta’s problem. And you definitely don’t need two hours at a minimum to make your layover. You just need to take the plane train, and I’m tired of people acting like that’s a big 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 decent enough. Allegedly, the Centurion Lounge is pretty cool, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been. Still, having flown out of and through more airports than I can count in the last 10 years, I can tell you Atlanta is far from the worst. If you refuse to use the plane train, that’s on you.