Rant: Airports are stupid

So I arrived in Charlotte from Houston tonight at about 7:15. My sister is flying in from Baltimore to arrive at 8:45. So it would be stupid for me to go home. Instead, the plan was to grab dinner (note: i love Quiznos flatbread salads), and then do a little bit of shopping/internet surfing/reading while I wait on her flight. So I get off the plane and proceed to the nearest flight status board. It is just departures. I go to the next. And the next. Only departures. So I figure I'll go to the main board in the middle of all of the terminals. Only departures. Ok, so I understand that it's been almost 10 years since people without airplane tickets could go through security to pick up their loved ones at their arrival gates. But is my situation so uncommon that they've decided that arrival boards inside the terminal are obsolete?

So I find an airport directory board, and I approach it hoping I can find either a guide to which airlines fly out of which terminals or at a minimum an information desk. No dice. There is a symbol for information in the key, but not on the map itself. Awesome. Well played, Charlotte Douglas International Airport. I surrender.

So I booted up the 'puter and looked it up online. Because fortunately the airport does have wireless internet (the fact that it was just enabled a few months ago, however, is ridiculous. But I digress). Unfortunately, she is traveling AirTran, which is shitty, and which has yet to confirm her arrival gate even though she lands in 45 minutes. So I'm going to keep checking that I guess. It does actually show her baggage claim number (really?), so I can pretty much guess what terminal she'll land in. I may just go find an AirTran employee and ask them about it/give them a piece of my mind. This is way more work than it needs to be.