Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[michaelef]

Do we know the time line on upgrading the ceilings and lighting in the concourses? I think that will go a long way. 

[uptownliving]

Concourse A renovation is due to begin this month, followed by Concourse B, then C.

[Deleted.]

Looking at the schedule for next summer, it's currently the same as this summer's schedule. CLT-Dublin is scheduled on the A330 next year as well, instead of the 757 that was in the schedule. CLT-MAN hasn't been reloaded in the system, so I don't think it's going to be resumed. But of course this could all change, I don't know. Maybe Miesian Corners can shed some light on this. 

I am hoping that next year CLT-Madrid & CLT-Paris goes year round, or at least 5x weekly in the winter. Also is RDU-Paris year round? 

Edits in Italic.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Piedmont767
Added content.

[cltcane]

Looking at the schedule for next summer, it's currently the same as this summer's schedule. CLT-Dublin is scheduled on the A330 next year as well. But it could change, I don't know. 

I am hoping that next year CLT-Madrid & CLT-Paris goes year round, or at least 5x weekly in the winter. 

I don't have any inside information, but I think both CLT-MAD and CLT-CDG have the chance of becoming year-round, even if less than daily in the winter.

Also, in the bad news category, it looks like Insel Air is ending its service to Curaco by early January.  CLT-CUR was announced by AA a few months ago (starting in December), so I figured this probably meant the eventual end of Insel Air's service, especially since both are 1x weekly on Saturdays.  And honestly, I'm surprised this route lasted as long as it did with no alliance feed on either end and nothing more than an interline agreement with US Airways in place.  Insel Air flies almost exclusively to destinations in the southern Caribbean and northern South America plus Miami, so Charlotte was always an outlier in their route map.  It's disappointing to lose one of our three international carriers, but at least CLT is retaining year-round non-stop service to CUR.  We now just get to pay twice the fare (not kidding - I did a search for multiple dates) for the privilege of flying AA!

[LKN704]

How long will the Concourse renovations take, and what will they include?

Does FCO appear to be safe next summer? I have heard a couple people (some from Miami ) say that the flight was "at risk", which I find hard to believe, especially seeing as Delta just announced Minneapolis-FCO nonstop for next summer. I'd like to see MAD go year round as well as CDG. CDG especially because Raleigh will now have a year round nonstop to Paris, and AA seems to be much stronger than US was in CDG. I believe CLT-CDG was year-round 2010/2011/2012 if I recall. Remember that Rome was originally announced as year round as well, as was flown until January 5th or so for a while.

[ChessieCat]

Would love to see CLT-MAD become year round.  Who knows, maybe QR can take over the route on a 787 codeshare: CLT-MAD-DOH.  Now that US/AA has moved to MAD's oneworld Terminal 4 it becomes a lot easier to synchronize but it's all wishful thinking on my part .

A little aside here: Whenever I would fly USAir's CLT-MAD route we would always arrive in Terminal 1 at the same time as an Air China A330-200 flying the PEK-MAD-GRU route.  MAD is useful for connecting Asia, Europe and the Americas... 

Edited October 5, 2015 by ChessieCat

[Silicon Dogwoods]

From the CBJ:

It's time to talk about airline megahubs.OAG, formerly Official Airline Guide, has just concluded an exhaustive study of the major hubs that airlines have established around the world, and Charlotte Douglas International Airport ranked No. 4.

Illinois-based OAG also included Charlotte Douglas at No. 10 on a chart of the 10 fastest-growing megahubs in the world, referring to airports with both a large number of inbound and outbound flights coupled with well-timed airline schedule

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2015/10/06/oag-charts-dramatic-rise-of-the-airline-megahub.html

(you may need a subscription to read all of it)

 

[navigator319]

From the CBJ:

It's time to talk about airline megahubs.OAG, formerly Official Airline Guide, has just concluded an exhaustive study of the major hubs that airlines have established around the world, and Charlotte Douglas International Airport ranked No. 4.

Illinois-based OAG also included Charlotte Douglas at No. 10 on a chart of the 10 fastest-growing megahubs in the world, referring to airports with both a large number of inbound and outbound flights coupled with well-timed airline schedule

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2015/10/06/oag-charts-dramatic-rise-of-the-airline-megahub.html

(you may need a subscription to read all of it)

 

Im confused by this comment in the articlel:

In addition, the air travel intelligence company broke out its data to show the top 25 low-cost global megahubs, but CLT did not make the list. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, however, came in at No. 17.

I thought CLT was certainly lower cost then ATL??

[kermit]

^  hub for low cost airlines (not the hub with the lowest costs for airlines)

[Deleted.]

United is launching seasonal, daily service from Washington to Barcelona, starting May 25th through Septmber 6th. Between this and the Atlanta-Barcelona fights (scheduled to resume May 26th), I wonder how this will affect CLT-Barcelona? Currently CLT-BCN is scheduled to resume May 5th. 

Edited October 10, 2015 by Piedmont767

[15895]

I'm slightly amused Miami-Frankfurt is disappearing. 

Especially considering some people think the entire Charlotte Douglas airport will be picked up and dropped on Miami Beach 

[dcharlotte]

I'm slightly amused Miami-Frankfurt is disappearing. 

Especially considering some people think the entire Charlotte Douglas airport will be picked up and dropped on Miami Beach 

There's a lot of competition on the route since Lufthansa flies a daily A380 on the route.

[Deleted.]

We have the 3rd largest number of destinations in Europe next summer on American with a grand total of 7 destinations! Also CLT-Paris is on an A330-200 (instead of the -300) next summer, perhaps due to RDU-Paris? 

[tozmervo]

If only they could figure out how to leave rainbow chemtrails... 

https://twitter.com/AmericanAir/status/653640696692371456

Edited October 12, 2015 by tozmervo

[ChessieCat]

Did anyone catch the Delta 747-400 at CLT last Wednesday?  An extremely rare visitor, it was the Hornets charter jet for their pre-season tour of China:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL8840/history/20151007/0930Z/KDTW/KCLT

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL8923/history/20151007/1400Z/KCLT/PANC

Unfortunately the return flight arrives Thursday at 3AM when the Overlook is closed

 

Edited October 13, 2015 by ChessieCat

[Miesian Corners]

A very long (but interesting) video of construction timing for the new roadway in front of the terminal.

(I really want to know who chooses the music for these things--jeez!)

Edited October 13, 2015 by Miesian Corners
nada

[LKN704]

They added more GIDS monitors at the gate area, pointed away from the actual boarding doors. It looks better, IMHO. They still gotta figure out how not to make the concourse smell like the men's room at Penn Station.

Also, I flew legacy AA for the first time this past weekend in probably 10 years. It  was weird being on a flight that departed/arrived at CLT that was equipped with IFE, as US ripped their monitors out years ago. One thing that was bizarre was that the flight attendants made no announcements during the flight...the TV monitors and a recorded system delivered every single announcement, even the one after landing.

[Miesian Corners]

^What's really sad is that the new A North concourse will be light-years nicer than the AA-controlled parts of the terminal--even with the planned upgrades. 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/v4skg5/picture36820209/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/AirportRender

 

[Deleted.]

A very long (but interesting) video of construction timing for the new roadway in front of the terminal.

(I really want to know who chooses the music for these things--jeez!)

Quite few pages back (when the video was released) someone commented on how they felt like a superhero whilst walking through Manhattan!

Edited October 14, 2015 by Piedmont767

[xapostrophe]

I've been genuinely surprised that the airport doesn't seem to think that making the terminal look much better for AA is important.  They are obviously the only real reason that airport is able to have the growth and success they  are currently having    Super strange mentality.   Should be the priority to make things better in those areas.   Or at least make the entire facility better.   

[Miesian Corners]

I've been genuinely surprised that the airport doesn't seem to think that making the terminal look much better for AA is important.  They are obviously the only real reason that airport is able to have the growth and success they  are currently having    Super strange mentality.   Should be the priority to make things better in those areas.   Or at least make the entire facility better.   

Make no mistake, the terminal will be better, but concourses A (existing), B, and C won't be any wider or have higher ceilings than they currently do.  They'll just have nice new floors, walls, and ceiling tiles. By comparison, the new A North serving Delta, United, jetBlue, and Southwest will have soaring 30 foot ceilings and a concourse that's 100 feet wide.  

[xapostrophe]

Make no mistake, the terminal will be better, but concourses A (existing), B, and C won't be any wider or have higher ceilings than they currently do.  They'll just have nice new floors, walls, and ceiling tiles. By comparison, the new A North serving Delta, United, jetBlue, and Southwest will have soaring 30 foot ceilings and a concourse that's 100 feet wide.  

thats a start, but sad that the priority is for the other carriers.   the old part of A, is that going to remain for outside carriers? or will AA take it over?  does anyone know?

[Silicon Dogwoods]

I've been genuinely surprised that the airport doesn't seem to think that making the terminal look much better for AA is important.  They are obviously the only real reason that airport is able to have the growth and success they  are currently having    Super strange mentality.   Should be the priority to make things better in those areas.   Or at least make the entire facility better.   

CLT is the lowest-cost major airport in the country. That is why we have a giant hub here. CLT is managed with a great deal of input (say-so?) from AA. So CLT doesn't take a breath without running it past AA first. For example, AA told CLT to make the new concourse suitable for domestic but not international, as was the original plan. 'Interim' Aviation Director Brent Cagle came to us from PHX, another AA hub. He was hand-picked by them to take over when Jerry Orr retired.

I'm sure AA has signed off on all the improvements @ CLT, at least in a tacit manner. For what it costs them to enplane one passenger @ CLT-$1.33!- I'm sure they're fine with just a nice facelift for the other concourses.

Have you seen the Delta terminal @ DTW (Detroit)? It's gorgeous. I would love to have that here. But CLT exists primarily because it was and is a super cheap hub for Piedmont/US Airways/and now AA. Considering that everything we have in Charlotte today is here because of CLT, I can live with cheap.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Silicon Dogwoods

[ChessieCat]

1) Nothing wrong with doing things on the cheap.  The last thing CLT needs is to end up like St. Louis by spending oodles of money on a redundant new runway and other terminal upgrades only to see AA leave.  Airways mag has an excellent article about AA's hubs.  CLT appears safe and I trust Airways mag's analysis better than others: http://airwaysnews.com/blog/2015/10/13/which-of-americans-nine-hubs-are-on-the-chopping-block/

2) I still think the fourth parallel runway is unecessary unless you build a midfield terminal like Detroit's because it will make the westernmost runway 18R/36L redundant.  

3) As mentioned before, CLT will see a rare visitor early next morning, the Hornets' 747-400 nonstop charter from Shanghai-Pudong to CLT.  You can track it here: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL8923/history/20151014/1730Z/ZSPD/KCLT

Unfortunately the overlook will be closed when it arrives at 3:30 AM

Edited October 14, 2015 by ChessieCat

[Deleted.]

^^Oh, could you imagine if that was a regularly scheduled flight with passengers onboard. Flying everyday between Asia and Charlotte.