They have some decent restaurants at ATL. They’re mostly chains, like P.F. Chang’s, but definitely not bad at all for airport food. Depending on what time you’ll be departing ATL, it might be worth arriving there early to have a meal at the airport, rather than airplane food.
If you like window seats, I always recommend being on the north side of the plane when traveling east-west. The sun will be a lot less of a pain than it will be on the south side. So port side eastbound, starboard side westbound.
If you can do without the rental car, MARTA can probably get you from the GaTech area to the Airport a lot quicker than driving. Just turning in a rental and having to wait for a shuttle will add 30-45min to your trip.
It often feels if you are flying Delta, they will route you through Atlanta, even if Atlanta is no where close to your route.
That’s called the hub and spoke model. Delta has fewer hubs, and ATL is their largest one.
Down here in the South, it’s said if the Good Lord returns, he’s going to have to change planes in Atlanta…
On topic, I would echo most of what is said here, and also concur that MARTA is a viable alternative unless there is a need to have a car. And the train system is highly effective; it’s let me catch 40-minute connections between 2-3 terminals without having to break into a run (OK, fast walk). So once you’re through security, getting to your gate may include a long walk, but not a huge amount of time.
Right the traffic from Midtown to ATL at 5pm on a Friday afternoon…:mad:
I’d be surprised if you made it to the airport, turned in your rental, caught the shuttle back to the terminal and made it through security before 7pm.
Regarding Delta Comfort seating - On a recent flight, my brother was asked if he would mind switching seats to accommodate another passenger. He agreed to change, not hearing or realizing that he was being upgraded to Comfort.
He didn’t learn that he had been upgraded until we told him, well after the flight had ended. He didn’t even notice.
mmm
If you’re paying for slightly more premium seats this won’t matter, but the A321s get significantly narrower in the back. Couldn’t give you an exact row number, but if you’re the kind of person who likes a lean-against-bulkhead snooze, you’ll regret that window seat in the rear.
All planes are now configured with less passenger room but a 767 should be more comfortable.
Well, I made the outbound leg of my trip.
Pretty smooth and uneventful. LAX was not very busy (in LAX terms), so the TSA Precheck line was really short. From arrival at the terminal to being through security was about 5-7 minutes.
The Delta lounge in Terminal 2 is really nice, if a bit small (I have to remember LAX is not a hub for Delta). The breakfast buffet was exceptional (fluffy scrambled eggs, decent french toast, fruit, yogurt, etc.).
It turns out that corporate flyers get a little bit of status, so I had a seat in the middle of the plane just behind Comfort+ (aisle is always my first choice and I got it) and boarded in Zone 1.
The economy seating was fine for a short to middling flight like this (a little over 4 hours in the air).
ATL is a very large (footprint) airport. It was a long slog to the rental car agency, but straightforward, no confusion or missed turns. I will adjust my return planning for this.
Similar to LAX, the overall footprint of the airport is large, but each individual terminal is not overly large. I find that some airports have vast open spaces that you must traverse to get from point A to point B, to me ATL and LAX do not have this issue.
I suppose observations about flying from one named Icarus are OK, not sure I’d take his advise, though… 
Well, I made it back.
The Delta terminals at ATL are much bigger than LAX. I can walk (and have walked) across LAX in under 10 minutes. LAX is U shaped, so the longest walk is a diagonal (Southwest to American). I would never try to walk from the main terminal to the last Delta terminal at ATL. It would take forever.
My meeting kind trickled to an end at about 2:30, so I had a nice long time to get to the airport and wait. Surprisingly, for the Friday before Labor Day, it only took about 30 minutes from leaving Georgia Tech to when I walked into the main terminal for Delta.
The airport was very busy and they diverted the TSA Pre line to the other end of the terminal just as I arrived, so I was in a herd of travelers being shepherded across the terminal. Weird. The TSA Pre wait was the usual 5 minutes, so no big deal. Though I will admit I made a tactical error in packing my medium duffle rather than my tiny or medium rollaboard, With the amount of walking I did within the terminal, stacking my laptop bag and rollaboard would have been less tiring.
Anyway, the flight was out of the A gates, so I checked out the Sky Lounge there. I was not impressed. Nothing horrible, but nothing special. Comfortable seats, charging, free food (only salad and hummus, nothing hot). Not very new and not very big. Since I had about 3 hours to wait, after my phone was fully charged, I started checking things out online. I ran across a blog post the ranked all nine Delta Sky Lounges at ATL and decide to check out the B lounge, which was high rated and close.
The B lounge was much nicer, much larger and had a bigger selection of food (two soups!). They had some nice high backed chairs facing the tarmac, so I kicked back there until it got close to boarding time. With the high back and facing the window, there is a real nice sense of privacy in what was a very crowded, busy lounge.
The flight took off on time and boarding (Zone 1 again) was fairly smooth. However, compared to the updated 321 I flew out in, the 767 was old and kind of tired (the 321 had newer seats and 9" screens, the 767 had older seats and the old beige bezel (6"?) screens. This flight was more reminiscent of the prior Delta experiences I have had and loathed.
And what is with the content on the Delta A/V? There are only 12 Dish channels (which kept dropping out for extended periods of time) and all of the movies are “modified for content”, which means substituting for “ass” and “shit”. I haven’t been on a flight that censored movies in years! I want at least FX and USA level movie butchering!
While the flight wasn’t a flight from hell, it did not impress. It wasn’t helped by the fact that, for me, the longest psychological time of flight is for transcon flights that take off in the evening heading home. They always seem twice as long as their clock time.
Bottom Line: Delta was no better and no worse than the other major carriers. Some flights are a dream and others are slogs. Some lounges give you the elite feeling and others just offer some nicer seats and a little less noise. (I can definitely recommend the Delta lounge in terminal 2 at LAX, though.)
Thus endeth my Delta experience, probably the only one for the next few years.