Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[uptownliving]

Was it posted here, or possibly I read it in some report, but Jerry Orr is taking the intial steps towards getting an automated tram to connect the terminal to the parking decks. I was under the impression they had scrapped the idea, but I know I saw an update on this recently that indicated they were moving forward.

Anyway, perhaps the CBJ names likely destinations, but besides current destination and Bogota, what else would be added?

Paris is pretty obvious. Where else? Vienna? I think some other destinations were thrown around. I think Berlin once their new airport is completed would be a good choise. Also maybe Madrid? Zurich? Milan?

I'm still hoping for some additional South American destination likes Buenos, Santiago, Rio, Sao, Caracas, and Lima.

Also, I'm curious if they will design the new international terminal to accomodate the A380? Now that the ICAO has ruled the A380 can operate on normal width runways and tarmacs, it could possibly become a more common plane than was once predicted, though I still dout Charlotte would ever see the demand.

Yeah I remember seeing that about the people mover as well. I guess it is back on the plate...but we won't know for sure till anything is built. I do know that nothing has been decided about the people mover...no RFP's or anything like that. So it is still at the conceptual stage.

I think the most expansion we would see would be to Latin and South America. I think the ones you named are good. Here is my list of most likely future destinations:

Panama City

Quito

Bogota

Lima

Austin

Oklahoma City

San Antonio

Paris

[RiverwoodCLT]

There was an article that reported that a new parking deck was going to be off Wilkinson Blvd. The parking deck would have a tram from the parking deck to the airport terminal.

Edited November 2, 2007 by RiverwoodCLT

[HopHead]

Yeah I remember seeing that about the people mover as well. I guess it is back on the plate...but we won't know for sure till anything is built. I do know that nothing has been decided about the people mover...no RFP's or anything like that. So it is still at the conceptual stage.

I think the most expansion we would see would be to Latin and South America. I think the ones you named are good. Here is my list of most likely future destinations:

Panama City

Quito

Bogota

Lima

Austin

Oklahoma City

San Antonio

Paris

I've stated on here how much I'd love direct flights to Austin and SA... glad I'm not the only one. In addition to that list I'd like to see:

Rome

Madrid

Athens

Sao Paulo (or something to Brazil)

Santiago (Chile)

I wonder if we could submit a wish list to CLT and see if they can accomodate

Edited November 2, 2007 by dbull75

[rockhilljames]

It would seem that our airport is about to undergo a huge physical transformation. As someone that goes to it at least 3 times a month, I hope they do it right. Access in and out of it is a bit of a mess right now.

[moving uptown]

remember, usair is a star alliance member. charlotte cant sustain o/d service to these destinations and in many cases would need a codeshare agreement (additional feed) to make it work. so if you look at the star alliance website (www.staralliance.com), locations such as portugal (tap airlines), zurich/geneva (swiss air), stockholm (sas), warsaw (lot), and vienna (austrian) would seem like the most likely candidates. star alliance has no partners in lat am but plenty in asia (though it will be a cold day in hell before clt gets direct asian service).

to further ramble, i dont see santiago (too far, too small), rio (bumped in favor of sao paulo) or buenos aires (i would love ba direct bc its such an amazing city) any time soon. sao paulo is more likely but still a stretch. quito just wont happen (too small of market, city of 1 million). Lima could happen (much larger city).

[HopHead]

It would seem that our airport is about to undergo a huge physical transformation. As someone that goes to it at least 3 times a month, I hope they do it right. Access in and out of it is a bit of a mess right now.

Ditto. I'm there 3-4 time a month myself and would like to see the access improve. Although, I've been to far worse airports. I really like how Dallas (DFW) did theirs with the train that goes around the concourses and the combined rental car facility (though the 5-7 minute ride to get to it kind of blows).

[cltheel.sdl]

It would be nice to get flights to Portland, Vancouver, Sacramento, SA, Austin, Montreal (do we have that already?), Paris, Rome, Athens, Madrid, Lisbon, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Copenhagen, Dublin, another UK city, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Oslo, Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, Cairo, Cape Town, Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Budapest, Kiev, Tokyo, Seoul, Honk Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Sydney, Auckland, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lampur, Manila, and Riyadh.

Realistically, I would be happy if just 25% of those destinations came to fruition.

[Commoner]

The plan is the tear down the Hourly Parking decks adjacent to the Terminal, rebuild them and put in the Rental Cars on the first level. Then they would tear down the current Rental Car facilites on Rental Car Rd and build the new international terminal on that land. The International terminal would be connected to the main terminal by moving sidewalks. Once the new international terminal is built that would open up Concourse D to further domestic flight expansion.

This has been posted many times...but this is what it could ultimately look like.

So is the plan to get rid of Concourse E? What is it? 10 years old?

[Miesian Corners]

Concourse E is in the above rendering. The connector would be demolished and that's it. Eight gates and office space are currently being built on E and should open in January.

[Appetite for Construction]

The International terminal would be connected to the main terminal by moving sidewalks.

Based on the master plan drawing, it appears that the underground sidewalks would have to be in tunnels. The way that the international terminal connector comes in at an angle, anything above ground would be in the way of airplane movements.

Have we heard anything from the airport confirming that the connection will be underground?

[RiverwoodCLT]

It says that on the drawings. I blew up the draing and could just out underground.

[uptownliving]

Those masterplan docs are a few years old...so they might do that...they might not. They have not even made the final decision to start the process by tearing down the Hourly Decks yet and put the Rental Cars there.

[atlrvr]

The CBJ article was free to read for yesterday only....not much info was provided, except a time frame was given for construction of the international terminal.

Construction could begin in 2010 and be completed by 2011....cost would be about $50M which would likely be covered by an airport issued bond.

That's much quicker than I thought, and would be ready well in advance of USAirways getting the A350's in 2014.

[Ryepow]

One year to build a 25 gate international terminal? That sounds like wishful thinking to me. If they do build it and start in 2010 I would think opening will be late 2012 at the earliest.

[Miesian Corners]

One year to build a 25 gate international terminal? That sounds like wishful thinking to me. If they do build it and start in 2010 I would think opening will be late 2012 at the earliest.

We're talking about Jerry Orr here. As cheaply as he builds stuff at CLT (in materials, design, and execution--and BOY does it show visually), he'll install giant double-wides with Jetways and call it the International Terminal.

[kickazzz2000]

We're talking about Jerry Orr here. As cheaply as he builds stuff at CLT (in materials, design, and execution--and BOY does it show visually), he'll install giant double-wides with Jetways and call it the International Terminal.

I dont know, I've been pretty pleased with the D extension and the new E concourses. The rest of the place is showing its age though...

[Raintree21]

Why do we keep hearing that Charlotte has one of the nicer airports in the country?

[monsoon]

I am not sure because The Consumerist recently listed Charlotte as one of the 10 airports in the country to avoid if at possible. This is due to it's horrible record of on time performance. Currently 4th worse in the nation.

[rockhilljames]

...because we DO have a nice airport.

It's not as nice as some, but the rocking chairs are great. I don't have layovers in Charlotte (duh), but I do in many, many other cities. I'd rather be trapped in Charlotte than O'Hare, LAX, etc, etc...

[Raintree21]

I think on-time records and the actual airport are two different things. Of course, if your flight is late or cancelled, your whole experience is ruined and could thus offer the bad opinions of our airport. I think the actual question/idea was whether or not the physical airport itself is nice or not.

[Miesian Corners]

Since I travel for a living, I see the best and worst of airports. CLT isn't terrible, it just isn't good. And while I can appreciate that people think its nice, I spend LOTS of time in it and see all the flaws. I see the poor signage, ugly carpet, dirty bathrooms, stained ceiling tiles, disregard for what is good architecture, cheapening out on finishes, traffic back ups on the upper and lower level roadways, FIDS monitors that date from the 1990s that are either so blurry that you can't read the flight information or the screens are simply black, customs hall and passport control areas that look as if they came out of the 1970s and have the CLT Jerry Orr special hand-written signs held up with scotch tape (with incorrect grammar) directing travelers from all over the world to baggage claim, etc. Meanwhile, Buffalo gets a Kohn Pedersen Fox terminal with the history of flight done in terrazzo on the terminal floor, Portland gets an award-winning new arrivals hall, Minneapolis gets great shopping and expanded baggage and rental car facilities, Pittsburgh gets an Alexander Calder mobile, BWI cuts skylights into all of its older concourses to make them appear larger and brighter, etc.

But rocking chairs are what people like, I guess. So much for good architecture. Mediocre is what we do best at CLT.

[Andyc545]

Since I travel for a living, I see the best and worst of airports. CLT isn't terrible, it just isn't good. And while I can appreciate that people think its nice, I spend LOTS of time in it and see all the flaws. I see the poor signage, ugly carpet, dirty bathrooms, stained ceiling tiles, disregard for what is good architecture, cheapening out on finishes, traffic back ups on the upper and lower level roadways, FIDS monitors that date from the 1990s that are either so blurry that you can't read the flight information or the screens are simply black, customs hall and passport control areas that look as if they came out of the 1970s and have the CLT Jerry Orr special hand-written signs held up with scotch tape (with incorrect grammar) directing travelers from all over the world to baggage claim, etc. Meanwhile, Buffalo gets a Kohn Pedersen Fox terminal with the history of flight done in terrazzo on the terminal floor, Portland gets an award-winning new arrivals hall, Minneapolis gets great shopping and expanded baggage and rental car facilities, Pittsburgh gets an Alexander Calder mobile, BWI cuts skylights into all of its older concourses to make them appear larger and brighter, etc.

But rocking chairs are what people like, I guess. So much for good architecture. Mediocre is what we do best at CLT.

Funny you mentioned Buffalo, because I have a lot of experience there, and although significantly smaller, the architecture is done on a completely different level than CLT. I agree, it's about time that they update all of the screens to LCD. A lot of other airports have made this change.

[walker]

...because we DO have a nice airport.

It's not as nice as some, but the rocking chairs are great. I don't have layovers in Charlotte (duh), but I do in many, many other cities. I'd rather be trapped in Charlotte than O'Hare, LAX, etc, etc...

Besides the rocking chairs, another little known feature that I enjoy and have used maybe a half-dozen times this year when passing through is the long sidewalk/path that goes from the terminal to the far side of the airport past the viewing area all the way to the monument to the air crash over by the new (runway?) construction. I park the rental car at a small free parking lot at the far end of the path then walk to the terminal and back. I get about four miles of exercise that way. Since there are various poorly maintained exercise stations along the way, I assume it was meant to be used by someone for just that purpose. Not sure who though since it wouldn

[rockhilljames]

I didn't even know about that.

I'll have to look for that in a couple of weeks.

[Batou]

One thing I like is that the wifi is free at the airport.