Charlotte International Airport – Flyer Beware!
My well-traveled son swears that the Newark Airport is the worst he has encountered in several cross-country and round-the-world trips. Based on my recent experience, I would contend that the Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) in North Carolina is a challenger for the worst organized transit point that I have seen in the US. (Some middle-European airports have been worse, but they have the disadvantage of operating in a foreign language, so some allowance must be made.)
What’s wrong at CLT? It started when we landed. Most major airports swoop the traveler over ocean, beach, green farmland, with maybe a view of soaring skyscrapers in the distance. At CLT, you come in over red clay, bulldozers, and cranes. Construction is ongoing and omni-present.
Then you land. In some airports (Austin-Berstrom International in Texas is a good example) , the runways are bordered with flowers, shrubs, and other welcoming landscaping. At CLT it is dirt and asphalt, dirt and asphalt, as far as the eye can see.
Once we were off the plane, we needed to navigate to pick up our rental car. Should have been east, but the construction was endemic inside the terminal as well as outside. Signs for the rental car desks seemed to point in both directions. Passengers thronged the endless passageways, most looking anxious. Per its own website, CLT “has one passenger terminal with 115 gates (more than any other single airport terminal building in the U.S.). That’s a lot of places to be intending to go.
If we hadn’t had a guide, we would have been wandering for hours. Fortunately, my companion’s limited mobility had moved us to reserve a wheelchair. We have learned that a wheelchair at an airport is the equivalent of a magic carpet, operated by a genie who can whisk you through doors marked “Emplyees Only”, take you to the front of the line at Security, and work other magic. But CLT puzzled even our expert.
We picked up our baggage on the second floor, and the rental car center, per our airport map, was also on the second floor – of the parking garage opposite. So near, and yet so far! There is no direct access from the terminal to the parking garage on the second level, so we followed the signs saying “Go to Level One and take Walkway to Garage.” It was a long wait for the elevator, and a long echoing bland tunnel to the other side of the street. There was another elevator – and a line a dozen people long. “We’ve been waiting quite a while,” said one of the queue members. We looked for signs of movement in the elevator cables visible through the glass walls of the elevator shaft. No visible activity. We waited a while longer, and our wheelchair attendant whispered, “There is another way.”
Back through the underground passage, and an elevator shaft in operation. Up to the fifth floor, and across the bridge to the parking garage. Another wait for an elevator down, and we were finally at our destination.
Once in the arms of Hertz, we felt safe and comfortable. Our car was waiting, the exit was marked, and we were on our way… almost. Even though the center of Charlotte is well away from the airport (see skyline in photo above), somehow the downtown traffic was RIGHT THERE. Several stoplights and many brakelights later, we made it to Interstate 77.
Allyson Johnson 