Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[CltFlyer]

Which one is CLO? Cali? How big a market is that from the US?

yes its cali....they just want the frequency not the city, i suppose they would still fly to Bogota it sounds like.

[Raintree21]

For those of us that don't speak airplanese, could you guys spell out the airports name instead of using their FAA abbreviation. Some are obvious but quite a few are not. I would think that half of us have no idea where you're talking about when you don't use their actual name. Thanks.

[HopHead]

Based on the discussion in the other thread about Asian routes from Charlotte (or lack there of)... does anyone know if any other airport in the country has quite the dominance by one carrier that CLT has?

[uptownliving]

I would say the closest example would be Cincinatti with their Delta hub.

[Miesian Corners]

Based on the discussion in the other thread about Asian routes from Charlotte (or lack there of)... does anyone know if any other airport in the country has quite the dominance by one carrier that CLT has?

Northwest in Minneapolis/St Paul (MSP).

[CltFlyer]

Northwest in Minneapolis/St Paul (MSP).

Charlotte does not have the need for Asian routes and what other thread .

[Miesian Corners]

Charlotte does not have the need for Asian routes and what other thread .

Not sure if I understand your comment. I thought dbull was asking if any other city had the dominance of one airline like US has at CLT. That being the case, I said Northwest at MSP. If we're talking about Asia only, Delta's Cincinnati hub offers no service there.

MSP doens't really have a "need" for Asian routes either, but NWA (Northwest Airlines) historically offered service there because of the United States government's treaty with Japan after the Second World War. It, along with United Airlines, are the only foreign carriers allowed intra-Japan service due to the spoils of war. Since 1952, they are the only two carriers that can fly as often as they wish to Japan. They also have something called "beyond rights", which is the option to pick up passengers in Japan and fly them to third counties. This gives Northwest and United the ability to create hubs in Tokyo that offer one-stop links to the American mainland from a multitude of Asian cities. So big a deal was this in the 1970s that the carrier changed its name to "Northwest Orient". In short, NWA serves much of Asia for the simple reason that it has both the ability and expertise in that market due to history.

[moving uptown]

so what was the deal at clt last evening - i was at dulles on the runway ready to take off and the captain came over the radio and said a "ground stop" had been issued at clt. We never did get an explanation but when we finally got to clt last evening, everything was delayed and the weather was perfect.

[monsoon]

.....

MSP doens't really have a "need" for Asian routes either, but NWA (Northwest Airlines) historically offered service there because of the United States government's treaty with Japan after the Second World War. It, along with United Airlines, are the only foreign carriers allowed intra-Japan service due to the spoils of war. Since 1952, they are the only two carriers that can fly as often as they wish to Japan. .....

A clarification on this. It was Northwest and Pan-American airlines that were designated this in 1952 as United did not start flying to Japan until the 1980s. In 1985, United bought Pan-Am's Pacific operations and thus inherited the designation. As we all know Pan-Am no longer exists.

BTW, it wasn't just Japan. Until de-regulation occurred in the 1970s, I believe that Pan-Am and NW-Orient were the only airlines permitted to fly any trans-pacific route. This of course would explain why there are no trans-Pacific routes in NC because the hub and spoke airline system that we know today basically did not exist prior to the 1980s. It might make sense to put these kind of routes in a large hub such as Charlotte but as the Japan example demonstrates, international routes are not de-regulated and much of what exists today are based on agreements that go back decades prior to the concept of deregulated transit.

[CLT]

I ran across this article on another board. It covers a lot of issues concerning US Airways but also touches on their international expansion with the arrival of new aircraft over the next several years.

Vegas Article on US Airways

From the article: "But it will be the eastern hubs - Philadelphia and Charlotte - that will get most of the airline's attention with its European emphasis."

"Andrew Nocella, senior vice president of schedule planning and alliances, said the airline would start out adding more frequency to existing markets before barreling into new destinations. That means more flights to 18 cities that include London, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam."

I could see them adding several cities to CLT. Maybe not daily service but several frequencies per week to cities like Paris, Manchester, Madrid, Amsterdam, & Rome.

[CltFlyer]

Does anyone have updates on the latest info from the Dot on Columbia the last i heard US Airways was appealing.

Edited March 15, 2008 by CltFlyer

[CltFlyer]

Charlotte to Chicago Midway has officially been dropped by Airtran Airways.

[Appetite for Construction]

I ran across this article on another board. It covers a lot of issues concerning US Airways but also touches on their international expansion with the arrival of new aircraft over the next several years.

Vegas Article on US Airways

From the article: "But it will be the eastern hubs - Philadelphia and Charlotte - that will get most of the airline's attention with its European emphasis."

"Andrew Nocella, senior vice president of schedule planning and alliances, said the airline would start out adding more frequency to existing markets before barreling into new destinations. That means more flights to 18 cities that include London, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam."

I could see them adding several cities to CLT. Maybe not daily service but several frequencies per week to cities like Paris, Manchester, Madrid, Amsterdam, & Rome.

Not any good or bad news for Vegas in there, but good news for CLT!

And also, if there was any doubt how US Airways feels about Airbus ... "Nocella said he believes the A350 will be even more technologically advanced than its Boeing counterpart, the 787 Dreamliner, which is expected to begin flying this year."

Edited March 18, 2008 by Appetite for Construction

[uptownliving]

The 2007 World Rankings are flowing in for Airports based on Passenger Volume. It appears that Charlotte has moved up a couple notches from 2006 where it was ranked #36. Based on the 2007 Passenger Volume of 33.2M people flying through Charlotte that would place us at #30 for 2007. In 2007 Charlotte jumped ahead of Seattle, Toronto, Philadelphia, Barcelona, and Rome. This places us just behind Miami which had 33.7M Passengers in 2007.

#27 DUBAI 34.3M

#28 MUNICH 34.0M

#29 MIAMI 33.7M

#30 CHARLOTTE 33.2M

#31 ROME 33.0M

#32 BARCELONA 32.8M

#33 PHILIDELPHIA 32.2M

Of course our ranking is mostly due to the USAirways hub. I was surprised to see us surpass Philly this year which is also a major US Airways hub.

[Appetite for Construction]

I was surprised to see us surpass Philly this year which is also a major US Airways hub.

Indeed ... since PHL is also a US Airways hub (with more international service), is served by Southwest (which always seem to boost traffic), and has a much larger local population, this is pretty surprising to me as well. Based on recent announcements regarding additional service, looks like CLT should break into the top 30 next year.

[CltFlyer]

I was reading through my issue of Airports of the world and i saw that Clt was in the top Ten american airports for On times departures last year.

[Raintree21]

Anybody know if they are going to build a new observation area when they open the 3rd parallel runway? I'm sure the current one will be closed down since it would be pretty much in the middle of the expanded property.

[monsoon]

Charlotte got a mention on the national news tonight because apparently the pilot of the USA Denver to CLT flight accidentally fired his gun in the cockpit while the plane was in the air.

[coreyt]

Wow a major city got a mention on national news??????

[monsoon]

Wow a major city got a mention on national news??????

When do you think Charlotte will be major enough so they don't have to add NC to it?

[CLT]

On NBC Nightly News last night with Brian Williams made no mention of "NC". I was taken aback that NC was not mentioned, I've come to expect it.

[UrbanCharlotte]

On Jay Leno last night the incident was mentioned and no NC mentioning.

[monsoon]

This link speaks for itself. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23780390/ From NBC news.

NBC's flagship station. http://www.wnbc.com/news/15698075/detail.html

[rockhilljames]

..but isn't this a non-issue? How is this positive or negative publicity for Charlotte? Any intelligent reader would realize that the two cities mentioned (Charlotte and Denver) have absolutely nothing to do with this, it just happened along that route.

So why is the fact that Charlotte mentioned in the news about this worthy of mention?

As a side note, since my wife and I are expecting again in April, I'm not traveling for the entire month of March and April! That means I don't have to see Charlotte-Douglas for another two months!!!!!!!!!!

[monsoon]

^You don't think that a gun being fired inside a US Airway's plane, by a pilot, while it was in the air, on a route that serves Charlotte, might be of interest to some in the Charlotte forum about US Airways?