This Admirals Club Features Dangerously Misleading Signage

You either love or hate the Admirals Club at DFW Terminal C. It’s giant, and it’s dated. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to be George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, this club could likely give you a pretty good idea. The food selection is abysmal, but at least there are plenty of places to hide out, including full-height cubicles in the business center. Even though the terminal has largely been relegated to domestic flights to secondary markets like Oklahoma City (OKC), they’ve never removed the shower facilities from the terminal – something CLT doesn’t have at either of their Admirals Clubs.

Well, there’s one interesting feature of this club that AA desperately needs to update. You see, it’s been years since AA changed its policy on gate closure, requiring passengers to be in the gate area available for boarding no later than 15 minutes, in its endless and well-documented quest to achieve D0 at all costs. However, signage at various points throughout the facility paints a different picture.

What’s wrong with this picture? These signs state AA’s previous policy of gate closure at just 10 minutes prior to departure, not 15.

This is dangerous to have posted prominently throughout the club. People like to enjoy the lounge until the last possible second, and 5 minutes can make all the difference between making your flight and missing it. I guess AA assumes most people enjoying an Admirals Club are probably frequent enough flyers to know better. But one has to wonder how many infrequent travelers have been burned by this; I’m imagining someone going on a once-in-a-lifetime trip on a business class ticket, or someone on a long delay purchasing a day pass when those are actually offered for sale.

As that terminal is rebuilt piece by piece (and it will be stunning once complete), I can’t see AA investing another dime into that club unless absolutely necessary; everything is being rebuilt anyways, so why would they? Regardless, maybe if they don’t want to paint over the paint damage from removing these signs, maybe they can at least have some new ones printed? This would be forgivable if it hadn’t been many years since this change was made… but in 2023? C’mon, AA…