Atlanta Hartsfield Airport

Atlanta has to be the worse airport in the world for transit. We landed there from Mexico with 1 hour 45 minutes to connect to our Virgin flight to London. Although we had an ESTA we were put in an immigration queue with about 50 other people and just 3 open desks. After standing there for 20 minutes and going nowhere I told the staff organising the queue that we had an ESTA and time was ticking for our connection. She just shrugged and said if you miss the flight you will just have to take the next one. Not acceptable, so I found another staff member and asked to go to the front of the queue, she said not without asking everyone individually if that was ok - seriously? I just stood at the top and shouted at everyone - got no objections so tagged on to another queue at the desk. After another 15 minutes he processed us as visitors to the USA taking a photo and finger prints. We then had to run round, find our bags, get through customs, put the bags another carousel and then join another great big queue to go through security. We had walked less than a 100 yards from start to finish so why we had to go through security again is beyond me. We then had to run downstairs for the transit train from Terminal E to Terminal F where a guy from Virgin was waiting at the top of the escalator for us and radioed the gate that we were on the way as 5 more minutes and we would have been offloaded. Talk about a stressful and totally unnecessary performance just to transit through an airport. Really not good enough for this day and age - bad organisation, rude and useless staff. I've never had to deal with such a badly organised flight connection.

I would avoid Atlanta airport at all costs. I missed my connecting flights both ways because of the sheer incompetence and indifference of the staff. More than 300 non-US passengers had to be processed at immigration on the outward journey. This took 3 hours standing in a queue because staff just stood around chatting. After an hour they half-heartedly began filtering people depending on the documentation they held. Announcements were made so incoherently that they could not be heard. Some of the staff processing travellers through the finger and eye recognition channels were unbelievably rude and treated us like simpletons. On our return connection through Baton Rouge we were also delayed because of problems at Atlanta which resulted in missed connections and baggage that that could not be tracked. Atlanta is a very large airport but, on the basis of my experience, the infrastructure cannot sustain its capacity and customer numbers. I was extremely disappointed - as someone who had not flown since 1983 I was very apprehensive but had coped much better than expected with the flights (KLM and Delta). My experiences of Atlanta airport soured my overall memories. There is a very serious need for staff training in use of initiative and basic good manners.

✅ Verified Review | Arrived with Delta Air Lines on April 23 at around 1pm, in transit to Fort Lauderdale, departure at 3pm. We had two bags checked in at Panama City, tagged for the final destination. We are non-US citizens, we do have a valid ESTA since a previous visit. On arrival we were directed to a "first-time-ESTA" queue because of overload of the correct queue. We were over 100 persons in queue - only one (1) employee serving at the roundabout 20 parallel control points. The queue hardly advanced, frustrated people everywhere. After 1.5 hrs it was our turn. We hurried on, but were told to pick up our checked-in baggage and drop it at another location. We then entered another endless queue for security check. By the time we were thru, it was 3.30, our plane was gone. A nightmare. We do not mind the security rules, but we hate being disrespectfully treated.

Georgia is lovely place but what is wrong with Atlanta airport? 1 plane load of people in the non-US citizens queue took 2 hours 15 mins to clear immigration. 2 people on immigration so laid back I was amazed. There were hardly any people at the airport. Then we could not find our baggage because despite speaking to someone before we went through immigration he misdirected us to the wrong concourse. In the end we were misdirected twice. The attendant by baggage reclaim was aghast that we had been in the airport for 2 hours. Then on our return the same thing. They literally take hours to check in a few people. Do these poor souls get any training? If they do it not for this job. The signs make no sense.

Arrived on time giving 1hr 45mins to get connection. Queue for non us citizens was out of the hall and down the corridor. Very few staff and explaination is that it's like this everyday. Big number of travellers missing connections. Queue for immigration was over 2hrs then queue to rebook flight and pay for hotel for the night. Had a day in Atlanta, good people, can't say the same about airport management.

I have to say that for an airport as huge as ATL it is extremely easy to navigate and change planes in a very short time period. I was also incredibly impressed with our arrival process through immigration and customs. There were hundreds of travelers arriving at the same time and we were all processed very quickly in no more than about 20 minutes through immigration and customs and then another 15 minutes or so through security. Staff were all pleasant and welcoming. The whole process was a breeze. Very good free WiFi as well.

Travelling from Punta Cana to Las Vegas via Atlanta on Delta. Good signage on arrival at the airport showing separate lanes for US citizens and all others. Staff member standing below the signs shouting 'here for US citizens and over there for all others' - presumably for those who cannot read. Immigration hall for non-US with lots of booths but only 2 manned. One family dared to step over the yellow line and this was the trigger for the immigration officer from the other booth (50% of the workforce) to leap out of his booth and start shouting 'this is not gonna work, this is not gonna work' pointing at the yellow line. A simple,'excuse me could you please step back a little' would have sufficed. The other immigration official seemed mildly amused (or embarrassed). We were lucky that our connecting flight was in the same E concourse or it may have been a rush with a 90 min connection.

Transit only but I have travelled this route 3 times now with a 40 minute connection from a Delta domestic flight to a Virgin Atlantic international route back to Heathrow and everytime its been a breeze. Walk off the arriving aircraft, skytrain to the International terminal and walk on to the boarding flight back to UK. Airport in my opinion is clean and uncluttered with a good selection of shops in the International terminal.

Transit at this airport was a nightmare. Upon arrival the immigration staff were sat at their kiosks but not working, this must have been the case for an amount of time because a number of passengers in the queue before us had sat down on the floor. When the staff eventually started working it took ages to be processed because of the small number of staff and the long queue that had built up. I answered yes to the question had I been on a pasture recently, this instigated a secondary inspection which involved our cases being x-rayed for a second time just to be asked if I had the footwear with me that I'd worn on the pasture, which I hadn't. Then it was time to pass through security prior to our next flight, Friday afternoon when a lot of people are commuting home for the weekend and they only had two body scanners in use. Add to that how rude the staff are and all in all it wasn't a pleasant experience.

This was my hometown airport for many years and has remained a periodic part of my itineraries and, on balance, one of my least favorite airports. I've always cleared immigration/customs elsewhere, so I cant comment on that experience. Somethings have improved, others have gotten worse and many remain just awful as ever. The airport food choices have improved and its become a little easier to eat something "healthy" other than prepackaged salads. There are ample charging stations and there is now free wifi, although it is time limited. Shopping is now more upscale which some may find a plus - basically, its the kind of place one finds in other airports like Brook Brothers. Seating in the Delta gates has been revised to provide more individual seating, but it makes gates more awkward and provides less seating, overall. Security lines seem worse - back to where they were 10 years ago. TSA Precheck is available but one needs to ask about it and even then it's poorly signed and requires multiple questions to fins (it's off to the side in the South Concourse). The concourses are long and have no motorized walkways. Those who can walk have to dodge the motorized carts for those who can't walk. Delta still has no idea how to board a plane - they have more agents at the gate but no sense of team work. The merger with Northwest resulted in flight attendants doing their jobs rather than hiding in the galleys, but there's been no similar transformation at the gate, esp. here. And CNN remains inescapable, loud and dumber than ever. ATL remains an annoying airport to traverse with weak customer service and has become only slightly better as a place to kill time during the inevitable delays.