Charlotte Airport Flooded Today. The Airport’s So Bad, Passengers Didn’t Think It Was Worse Than Usual

by Gary Leff

Charlotte airport’s B concourse flooded this morning. Gates B1 – 4 were most affected. The airport reported that this was the result of “a construction project incident” though passengers reported toilet water.

By contrast, this is what the end of the B concourse typically looks like.

And here’s another view one sees of the airport.

Typical CLT
byu/kentuckb inamericanairlines

While the rest of the B concourse was unaffected by flooding, and the airport said only flights assigned to those gates were relocated, American Airlines passengers had to walk through this gate area in order to reach their flights. The area was dried by shortly after noon.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. Sh*t that’s CLT personified. I’m surprised they supposedly had gates available to relocate flights for their 33 minute connections.

  4. Last time I flew through CLT was a couple of years ago when I was spending some Avios miles on AA. It looked exactly like the photos, sans the open sewage. Frankly, it looked worse than any third world hub I’ve ever been to. Overcrowded gate, terminal, dirty, under construction, etc. And this was like 3 years ago! Looks like nothing has changed.

    AA has some of the most disgraceful hubs out there: CLT is a joke, PHL is a total pit (dirty, old, nasty), MIA is a horrible airport to connect through with gates one mile from each other and no good way to make the journey aside from a long walk (and the nastiest/rudest staff anywhere). PHX and ORD are just okay and do get the job done; DFW is probably the only one I’d consider “nice'”.

    If AA cares at all about being competitive, they need to step up their game and stop booking people through airports that aren’t up to the task of being a hub. I know CLT claims that it’s expanding, but it’s been years and years and the place still looks like a disaster.

  5. Definitely one of the worst, if the worst, airports in the US. The AA Admirals Clubs are crowded, dirty and loud. It’s saving grace is Concourse A.

  6. I avoid AA and CLT! AA at PHL and CLT are horrible – old, crowded, and not pleasant. AA doesn’t care. They do not want to put the money into these terminals. Of course, it could be that AA is so far in debt that it cannot afford any updates. In other forums, people in PHL and CLT are always crowing about the number of flights AA and others offer. I would rather drive elsewhere or ensure I have a connection that is not PHL or CLT to catch a flight.

  7. Concourses A, D and E are modern, open and have plenty of services. The older C and B concourses where many AA flights depart were upgraded but honestly should be replaced…they are crowded and not designed well. They are certainly better than they were before the renovations…at least the restrooms are!

  10. OK, that is a lot of hate for CLT, my home town airport. First of all, yes, there is a ton of construction going on all around the airport. Once finished (another 2 years on the terminal work, and probably more on the additional runway and taxi ways) it will be a better airport… for aircraft, and passengers checking in. It will not alleviate the congestion in Concourse B and C as only limited work has been done on these. But the flooding is a construction mishap. Was it bad? Yes! Are the optics bad? Yes! But it wasn’t a disaster, just a mishap.

    Blaming American for this is sending hate in the wrong direction. CLT is owned and operated by the Charlotte government. So if anybody could do something about anything, they are the ones to address.

    But CLT is not that bad, or much worse than say PHL or EWR or MIA or DFW. Or Grand Central Station…

  11. The airport where people movers don’t move and there is insufficient gate seating so everyone stands in the aisles so you can’t get on or off the plane without pushing through the crowd and it’s great for fitness because everyone has to run and knock each other over to make their 30 minute connections of which 20 minutes was lost on the tarmac due to the taxiway congestion.

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