All,

Here the Atlanta Masterplan 2030:

http://www.atlanta-airport.com/Airpo...mentation.html

ATL hasn't an official press release about the new masterplan yet.

Say what you will but ATL is still one of the more efficient hub airports in the US. Take it from someone who used ORD regularly and has used PHL regularly in the past, ATL is a dream, sans the summer storms.

There were a couple of interesting things in the plan that caught my eye. Clearly since DL is cutting departures via upgrading to larger aircraft and WN drawing ATL down as a "hub" moving to an O&D model some of the pressure has been reduced on the field.

A few thoughts:

1. parking is bad (at least it was when I lived in ATL up to 2008) and needs to be address ASAP, as does the entire terminal access on the DL side, particularly during periods of heavy travel.

2. Like the focus on modernizing existing gates, they're fine but about ready for some more love. Wish there was a way to reduce the spillage from the gate area into the main thoroughfares of the concourse. When ATL is at full-tilt and kettles are grazing around trying to board it can be very congested, and dangerous. I've seen people get knocked over more than once.

3. Need to do something with concourses C/D. They are not handling the larger aircraft well. That's more like a DL issue than a master plan issue.

4. Love the additional field work to improve aircraft movements.

5. As for concourses G/H/I/J/K/L/M/N...they can add as may as they want. I hope they consider building those out as LCC terminals and move their check-in and whatnot to the other end of the field and away from me. Hey, I can dream. :D

6. If they touch Popeye's I'll just die. :(

The problem with ATL in the winter is that the weather's great until it isn't, in which case they don't have the equipment to deal with ice and snow and the place comes completely unglued. At least DTW and MSP (and SLC) have the equipment to move snow and keep flights going.

Except in only happens in ATL about once every other year. I spend three days in DTW last winter against my will.

Last winter was exceptionally bad. I cancelled a number of trips due to bad weather. Usually DTW can handle a fair amount of snow.

OTOH, I've had two forced overnights this summer in ATL due to weather in an otherwise very smooth summer of travel. Stuff happens.

The ATL layout of parallel concourses has been replicated in CVG (when it was still a hub) and DEN. The only limiting factors are escalator capacity and train headways.

CLT airport planners wouldn't be planning for an ATL-like system of parallel concourses if it didn't work.

I'll take that risk any day. Winter storms in ATL (while crippling) are rare and predictable in advance (thank you winter wavers).

ATL has thunderstorms in summer, but so does DTW, MSP, ORD, DC Metros, NY Metros, PHL, DFW, IAH, and pretty much every other airport East of the rockies... This can be mitigated by not choosing flights after say 2pm in the afternoon, but tstorms are difficult to predict (accurately) more than a few hours in advance.

CVG is still a hub.

I think the half-concourse idea is just poor use of money. The airport management should've built Concourse F to be full-length, like every other concourse. They may not need 12 more gates (than what F has now) but it would've been nice to see that, and maybe in the future build 2 small concourses.

That's what I'm saying. And of course they're half concourses.

Don't think the domestic concourses are wide enough. I can see E getting it done, however it would be tight. F is wider than E, but it is brand new and I'm sure that won't be touched for at least a decade.

No, actually, it just only focus city, but DL is no longer hubbed.

Im also in favor of adding second half of F, and just continue the efficient design with G,H, and I terminals. They should add the 6th runway as the northern most runway, (yes would have to tear down some buildings but would keep even amount of runways on each side of the gates) and connect Marta to both ends of the airport. Revamp the Plane Train to something more comfortable (from T to imaginary terminal G would take 15 mins). Relocation of DL maintenance hangars to where south gate complex was supposed to be would make the most sense.

I think it would be better to extend the ATL SkyTrain to the International Terminal, since it would help both passengers who need to transfer to MARTA as well as those who need to get to the Consolidated Rental Car Center. Extending MARTA to the International Terminal would be helpful for those who need to get to the rest of the MARTA system, but would be useless for those who need to get to the Consolidated Rental Car Center.

At least it's not a stadium, in which case it would just be imploded after 20 years. :D

+1

I always hear people complain about ATL because of it's size, but it's at least logical, mostly well signed, and easy to navigate. I flew into (rather than through) ORD recently - after wandering the terminals for 20 minutes and asking two airport employees, I ended up backtracking to my original terminal just to find the connection tunnel to the CTA. Zero signs anywhere, and the signs in the terminal train directed you to exit at the wrong place. :confused:

Yes, it can take some time between very distant gates at ATL, but I challenge any other airport with that many gates to find a better way. And at least with ATL's design, once you're through security, you're through security. All the comparisons I hear from other travelers are to airports that simply don't deal with the same quantity of aircraft and passengers, or where the experience is great as long as you don't have to change terminals/concourses.

I agree with others that there needs to be a better way to get from the int'l terminal back to the MARTA station and car rental train, outside of the sterile area. In my dreams, I'd picture an above-ground tram like the PHX Sky Train, going from one ticketing area to the other. You could get some pretty sweet views from above all the concourses!

Yeah thats another good idea. I guess it depends where majority of int'l pax go. If they need to go to car rental they can take marta one stop to domestic and transfer to skytrain to car rental, the other option would be the one you mentioned. Both good options, I guess it depends on where most passengers would go.

I think it'd be pretty tacky to make int'l arriving passengers pay $2.50 to ride MARTA to the other end of the airport (or $7.50 if they don't have a Breeze card already).

It's also somewhat more intuitive to take MARTA to/from "the airport", and then use the airport's own system to get from one part of the airport to the other. Perhaps there's a way to do that in conjunction with MARTA...

Either way, the core problem is the same - find a better way to transfer people between domestic and international terminals landside.