enviroian

they�re long gone.

jerseytom

Haters gonna hate. Personally, I'm quite happy with CLT as a home airport. It's admittedly been 10+ years since I've had to connect through it.

There are a few valid shortcomings.

Like other things around Charlotte, the airport has lagged behind the growth curve. It does get crowded and you've got gate areas that seem sized to fit an RJ's worth of passengers, and are instead boarding a 321. You can have some long taxi times, especially if you have to wait to cross 18/36C or get to the far side of the E gates; I could see regional-to-mainline on a tight connection being a pain in the butt. There's a throughput limit for international arrivals since CBP is only at the D terminal. For locals, there's no light rail service to the airport, and at times (last holiday season!!) the traffic getting off the highway and to the airport has been absolutely horrendous.

I think some of this will be alleviated with the ongoing several billion dollar expansion. 4th parallel runway, way more ramp and taxi area, expanded terminal space, etc.

Selfishly I'm hoping for expanded capacity for international arrivals, and that the arrival of 321XLR's opens up more non-stop destinations.

EXP100

Let me count the ways:
1. Gate areas that look like a rave mosh pit
2. Equally crowded hallways
3. Dirty, crowded ACs-the C Club that looks like something out of 1972
4. Grossly, morbidly obese passengers that move like sloths
5. A western runway that takes forever to get across
6. The E gates

rayfoxii

I've only been through CLT twice and both times were awful. Annoying to get through the crowds of people standing there waiting for their gates. I've seen both ORD and DFW brought up as worse in this thread but I'd take either over CLT any day. I think I'd only put EWR as worse from the airports I've been to in the US.

stant

?
i happen to like the dome/rotunda...

wrp96

The E Gates, and connecting to or from them from anywhere else in the airport. (MIA D60 is also on my really dislike list).

FlyFreakquently

I think your first sentence pretty much sums up why you feel this way. Every airport is going to have its good days, but when you are consistently transiting through CLT, you realize that the days you have a 30min wait for the Centurion, a 30min wait for your gate, experience a mass of people milling about in the middle of C, etc. are more numerous than the days when everything goes off without a hitch. YMMV, but my CLT experience has been more negative than positive.

WillTravel4Food

You beat me to this one. All the attendant really does/did was hide the smell of stale urine with a concoction of 80s era nightclub cologne, evenly distribute dripped urine across the floor with a mop that has never been cleaned, and look at you with angry eyes if you failed to tip for the "high quality" service. It's disturbing enough for me to avoid CLT at all costs.

And why does it cost more for a bottle of water at CLT than at JFK? I thought it was a low cost airport, which is why AA likes it so much. Maybe CLT gets its money directly from the pax through high terminal services costs and not via the airlines.

I avoid the place like the plague.

GRALISTAIR

I am connecting through there this weekend. I really dont have a problem with CLT.

pinniped

Question on this, because I've considered mixing up my credit card lineup and was thinking about the Amex Platinum: is the wait to get into the lounge for people with some type of guest access or partner access? I was under the impression that Amex Plat included no-questions-asked immediate access to Centurion lounges.

I'm used to cards that come with Priority Pass, which is often 2nd-class access, capacity controlled in some places, and randomly and arbitrarily not accepted at other times. I guess I figured Amex Platinum cut through this nonsense....at least with their own lounges.

If it's only the Black card that gets you in immediately, then that somewhat lessens the value of the Plat card. If I have to wait in line, then I might as well just go find a Priority Pass lounge.

Catbert10

Cons:

1. Way too overcrowded and not enough space near gates to handle the overflow
2. Surly GAs
3. Taxi delays and long waits for an available gate
4. Regional gates are especially chaotic
5. Overly aggressive banking - 35m connection or 3 hour connection are typically the only choices

Pros:
1. Bojangles, but due to Con #5, not always enough time to eat there

scubadu

I really can't fathom how you arrived at these conclusions. The internet and FT have had countless, posts, threads, articles, pictures, etc. regarding the state of Amex Cent lounges. They have literally been heaving with capacity issues/lines for years and yes, there are frequently waits to get into the Cent Lounges depending on time of day. Yes, holding the actual Centurion Card will likely get you in immediately (they reserve some tables/seating for Cent card holders), but with a Platinum Card, nope. We've been in the DFW CL where people were literally sitting on the floor (we turned around and walked out).

Think about this logically; you have a physical room that only holds so many people. How could they provide "no-questions-asked immediate access" to a space if it's full to capacity?

All of this obviously depends greatly on your travel patterns, but we have definitely had waits to get into Amex CL in CLT (and every other one, though we rarely even use them anymore)

Regards

enviroian

The only pro is the Jersey Mikes but the lines are long and service slow.

What is up with the obese people walking side by side at a inch by inch pace? I feel like a running back every time I go through there because I'm always looking ahead 15 feet strategizing how to move around these people ahead of time. I'm a fast walker too so it's really annoying.

Too crowded. Horrible place.

saunders111

I am surprised that some people think CLT is superior to DFW for connecting. I used to be based in ABQ, so regularly made connections at DFW. It is almost a miraculous airport: it has something like 150 gates, and you can get from any one of them to any other of them in 20 minutes or less. Walking briskly, I once made it from the B stub to the E island in 12 minutes... that's about the longest possible distance between gates. I can't think of another airport anywhere that meets that standard. And the corridors are wide, the walks from the Airtrain to the gates are short, the terminals are mostly either new or recently refurbished. The Airtrain is fast and reliable and runs every two minutes in both directions... what's not to like? The most annoying thing I can think of about DFW is that the taxi can take over ten minutes if you have to cross from the west side to the east side of the airport or vv. That's not much to complain about!

I share many of the complaints regarding CLT: it is a LONG slow walk from some E gates to the rest of the terminal; the terminals and the taxiways and ramps are soooo crowded during the banked connections. Making a connection there is like having an allergic reaction; just thinking about it makes me start getting itchy. And since I am now based out of TYS, I have to connect there a lot now, despite going out of my way to change in DCA or even PHL rather than CLT.

The very first time I connected in CLT soon after the merger, it took my arriving flight over an hour to get to the gate. Looking out the window, we could see unmoving airplanes just parked nose to tail up and down all the single lane taxiways and ramps. It was basically gridlock for the planes. I haven't had that kind of delay again, but that experience summarizes my expectations when it comes to CLT connections.

I hypothesize that part of the problem with CLT is that it is a magnet for infrequent fliers, since it almost always shows up as the cheapest connection because it has a slightly lower passenger facility charge than the other AA hubs. So someone choosing their connection based on "cheapest first, even if it is $3 cheaper" will gravitate to CLT. And infrequent fliers are perhaps a bit more likely to mosey down the middle of the narrow corridors three abreast than road warriors are.

6P&E

I've had an AAdvantage account since 1988. (yeah, I'm old) and have have been through every AA hub including ex-hubs BNA RDU and SJC. I have never set foot in CLT and avoid it every time the connection is offered. Reading these posts only reconfirms my suspicions.