Maybe they got cocky and think they can do whatever they want after having been voted best airport in Europe for four years.

Which makes you wonder who voted for that. Shouldn’t be people that have to go through immigration, changing terminals, requiring lifts or escalators to change floors, wanting to transfer between flights from/to safe destinations (other than intra-Schengen), taking those buses which are laid out for city traffic but not for airports (buses are terrible to start with, but at least get some Cobuses), wanting their luggage delivered in less than 40 minutes, or going to and through the airport by car, or wanting to stop in front of terminals to drop off passengers.

As mediocre as Roissy is, I think all the major European hubs have issues. Admittedly I have not gone through MAD, but I would take CDG over LHR or FRA anyday.

The design of fractioning airports into many terminals just doesn't work today. I prefer the large single or perhaps two terminal designs you find in Asia. Sure, the walking distances can be large but you're not left trying to figure out 7 or 8 different terminals and going between them.

Imho as long as things are well signposted, any setup can work. Passenger shouldn't be figuring anything out, whether in a single terminal or multiple ones.

Tbh, I didn't find CDG particularly confusing (unlike FRA for example). The only problematic thing I can think off was different halls of 2E, besides that I think it's pretty easy to navigate so I'm indifferent to this change.

But large single-terminal airports typically also have some sort of subdivision. Just went through DOH, and they have "concourses" A, B, C, and so on. Sure, transporting yourself between the various parts of the airport is easier, but navigation not necessarily more intuitive, except that A is closer to B than it is to E. Something that cannot be said of the new CDG layout where B, C, D are in Terminal 5, E is in Terminal 6 (so far so good), but then F is in Terminal 3. Go figure.

aside of this idiotic lettering, another major issue at CDG is the chaotic transfer from one terminal to another or when you stay in a hotel near Terminal 3 and you need to get out for it when you are new to CDG, the signage is absolutely no clear at all

getting to another terminal is an adventure itself

you take the stairs or elevators then you get the monorail to gate K, L or M, then you walk out and need to take a bus

just got back from a family visit in the US, in Atlanta, you get on a metro that connects all terminals and that's it

ATL is a decent airport and my preferred one for the east coast of the US. However, it's really crappy if ATL is your final destination, as you arrive at the E/F terminal and have no way to get to public transports except taking a very long bus ride to the other side, and it's not very reliable or timely.

Going to a separate scheme between terminals and gate numbers is a good thing. It was already confusing with T2E-KLM, was not helped at all with combining T2B and T2D, least to say the check-in switcheroo between T2F and T2E.

I can forgive going 3,5 on south, 4,6 on north of former T2, as it brings former T2F and T2G together in numbering, T6 and T7. Although in the same breath I must say, it doesn't matter anymore, the Terminal numbers are landside concept. They don't need to be next to each other.

The letters, however, are all over the place. Why throw them out so randomly, can't there be some sort of a system??

The similarity of A (in English) and E (in Dutch) was a point made many times by many people with AMS's new pier (still under construction) which seems to have then been summarily ignored as ridiculous and now it's just called the A pier as it should have. The signage is already there, in fact.

Which makes sense.

If making the usage of letters imbecile-proof then they shouldn't have used "N" (=too close to M, people may go and look for something that doesn't exist) or "C" (=Americans pronounce the "Z" almost the same way, people may go and look for something that doesn't exist), "B" can be mis-heard for "P", and so on.

The point is a different one: you don't need these letters! There are terminals 1-7, and then inside these terminals you have gates that have numbers. That's all. Why add that complexity? I know it's France and we love it, but why can't they for once make an exception?

"Much better"? And there is no G gate, remember, the letters miraculously chosen to make sure the whole thing is as much better as possible are B, C, D, E, F, N, R, S, and V. I'm sure that's an optimally logical and perfect choice too!

I know I have told the story all too often here on FT, but the more I think of it this looks like "Gare de Lyon as an airport". Random numbers and letters thrown at each other in unintuitive ways. Happy to spell out the Gare de Lyon situation, something I believe only exists in France - but we'll be slightly off-topic, but it's certainly a good laugh.

I think having gate letters is fine, esp. since T2E (soon to be T5) has three halls and this allows for easier-understood signage. It also means that gate numbers can be unique over the whole airport. There is only one gate B9, and it is in Terminal 5. Without letters, "gate 9" would exist in 7 very different places.

It's just weird that the letters seem to be somewhat random.

Also, is it me or is it not smart to name the gates that are currently in 2F, to E, given that 2F and 2E are closely related? I doubt people will forget T2E existed the moment they do this renaming, and given the scale of the project I highly doubt it will be done in one night so I expect there will be people looking for an "E-gate" in what will then be the T5 building.

But you don't need a letter to distinguish the 7 instances of "Gate 9" - the terminal designator ("Terminal 5") does that .

The letters just add an extra (unnecessary) level of addressing - just saying "Gate B9" wouldn't much help most members of the travelling public - it's not at all obvious which terminal is intended - whearas "T5 Gate 9" at least lets them know where they need to go...

Gate B9 tells travelling public exactly where they need to go - towards B gates and once they are in B concourse, then to gate B9.

Terminal 5 Gate 9 necessitates figuring out a way to show that in the first place - a lot of display systems (BPs issued anywhere and everywhere in the world, printed paper BPs, app mobile BPs from any and all airlines, wallet mobile BPs) might not be set up to show "terminal X gate Y" and at best you end up with a confusing mark like T5G28 and it does not have a way to deal with KLM concourses (future BCD) and it preserves the issue that this couples departure gate number to a check-in terminal, and we already have enough confusion with "I'm flying to non-Schengen but this says the flight departs from terminal 2F"

At best you can do Xnn but then how is gate 634 less confusing than gate E34 when you have arrived in C concourse at gate C48 or... what 5248?

I really don't get it, using letters to distinguish concourses is a gold standard used in many airports touted as great (or at least useful) for transfers, including the likes of Atlanta, Munich, Istanbul, Singapore. Why would CDG move away from this concept?

Well, no, precisely, it doesn't, which is the problem. Say that you are departing from terminal 3, how does a boarding card telling you that you will be going from gate F14 help? The F doesn't correspond to anything, it is a random letter, completely unrelated to the new terminal logic. That's why I personally think that calling your gate 314 (or 3.14) would be a lot more intuitive as it would include the terminal and gate in a single gate number.

I think the problem is that ADP and AF alike choose to start from their unnecessary complications to try and shape the whole system. As a result, what is supposed to be a simplifying exercise is no such thing because the airport and airline are starting from the cretinous design of 2E (future 5) and mess up the logic of everything else for the sake of 2E. This is really what the French would call "marcher sur la tete". If the problem is 2E (T5) and 2E only, then use the silly letters or colours or whatever you want for that terminal only and leave the rest alone. And just use normal letters - like make the terminal 1 gates 101 to 1xx, terminal 2 gates 201 to 2xx, etc and then just for terminal 5 if you really want to keep the silly logic of it then use zones A, B, and C or blue, red and yellow, or dog, cat and mouse or whatever you want for that ridiculous terminal alone without adding unnecessary complexity to the rest of the operations.

Easier however would be to just call the K, L, and M gates terminals e.g. 7, 8 and 9 (with 2F becoming T5 and 2G becoming T6) and simply have a common check in area for terminals 7, 8 and 9. And of course, as pointed by several of you, what's the point of any of it if AF continues the 2E/2F check in vs departure\?