Originally Posted by
Tomphot
In 25 years of flying into ATL, I have never had a 30 minute wait.
In addition, every time I have checked a bag, I get to the claim area before the bags even start coming up.
Maybe if things improve when Terminal F opens, I'll join GE.
This is one of those YMMV things.
In October '09, I was on a DUB-ATL-BWI itinerary. Even though we "pre-cleared immigration" at DUB, we still had to clear customs at ATL (why they don't do it all at DUB is a mystery). The flight was 100% full; as luck would have it, the ATL ramp staff offloaded the Priority-tagged bags last. Then there was a long line to hand one's customs form to a CBP officer, and almost equally long wait to go through TSA. This whole process took more than 70 minutes--I went straight to the BWI gate and arrived there after boarding had started.
In September '10 my wife and I were on a BRU-ATL-BWI itinerary (we got a reroute out of Europe because of the general strike in France). While we got through immigration pretty quickly, our bags took a long time to reach us; even though they were some of the first off the belt, we were at about 40 minutes after we had left the airplane. Then, while we had no wait to hand in our customs form to CBP, TSA was an absolute mess; there is no SkyPriority line there, and only three lanes were open when we got in line, one of which was reserved for pax who were terminating at ATL. Just as we got to the front of the line TSA thoughtfully opened a fourth line. Total time from the airplane to the formerly BE club in E was about 75 minutes.
Moral of story--if you can, travel light and try to avoid checking bags.