On Friday evening, the lot more closely resembled a trap, in which airport workers prevented dozens of cars from leaving for more than half an hour, citing heavy traffic and long wait times at the arrivals curb.

Terry Jacobson was one of the unlucky drivers. He pulled into the lot just after 4 p.m. and was almost immediately called by his friends, who had just arrived from South Carolina. But when he tried to leave, traffic management staff kept him there for another 30 minutes before letting him out.

Twitter user Eugenie Bondurant tweeted just after 4:30 p.m. that she had come to pick up her husband but sat among seven rows of cars stacked about 10 deep, waiting to get out for 35 minutes.

"FIX THIS MESS," she said. "No one is being let out."

The cellphone lot is a portion of the same lot used by taxis and Uber and Lyft drivers waiting to pick up riders, and the flow of those vehicles out of the lot are controlled by staff. The airport has been periodically plagued by long lines to pick up people at the arrivals curb, which is used by cars, ride-hailing services and rental-car and private-parking shuttles.