Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

I went through Hartsfield-Jackson again last week and was reminded in an impressive way that this is the busiest airport in the world in terms of planes landing and taking off. I was transferring from a Delta flight from Buffalo to a British Airways flight to London Gatwick and had a window seat on the BA flight. While in the take-off queue, I could see three runways (I don’t know if it has more). One of them was used for take off, the other two for landing and the planes were following each other uninterrupted on all three! The amount of coordination and planning this must require defies the imagination.

I was much less impressed when I landed in London as I discovered that, although they had 5 hours to do it, Hartsfield-Jackson failed to transfer my luggage from one flight to another and I had to go back home with only my cabin luggage, after having filled a mishandling report with BA. Luckily, I always make sure the important items, like money and door key, are in the bag I take with me, just in case. It just meant that my dirty laundry arrived home 24 hours after I did.

This is a big airport and it is fairly well organised. However, it is the only airport in the world that I know where you need to pick up your checked in luggage twice. You pick it up once when getting off the plane, in the terminal where you arrive; you pass customs; you put your luggage back on a conveyor belt; you then take a train to the main arrivals terminal where you pick up your luggage again. Complicated and confusing.