Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[soumith050118]

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/01/30/charlotte-airport-previews-concourse-expansion.html

 

"The additional gates are part of a large-scale expansion and renovation that includes eight lanes of lower and upper level entrance roads now under construction and slated to open in February 2019. Soon after that, a three-year main terminal expansion and upgrade will begin."

 

Did the opening of the new entrance roads get delayed?

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by soumith050118

[soumith050118]

What happens to Concourse E after the satellite terminal for express planes is built?

[cjd5050]

12 hours ago, soumith050118 said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/01/30/charlotte-airport-previews-concourse-expansion.html

"The additional gates are part of a large-scale expansion and renovation that includes eight lanes of lower and upper level entrance roads now under construction and slated to open in February 2019. Soon after that, a three-year main terminal expansion and upgrade will begin."

Did the opening of the new entrance roads get delayed?

I'll be that guy.  If you want to read the full article but don't have access, simply search in google the title of the article.  For the result, view the cached version.   This works on my paywalled sites.  

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Flhc68BcZkIJ:https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/01/30/charlotte-airport-previews-concourse-expansion.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[jtmonk]

Quick question, and sorry if this was answered already.  The article states that United, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier and Air Canada are moving to the new Concourse A expansion, what about Delta?  Are they going to stay in the old A Concourse and share it with American?  If so, will Delta get a few additional gates?  I also find it interested that the City is going to keep two gates to themselves in the new Concourse A expansion and lease them on an as-needed basis to various carriers.  This could be a good bargaining tool to get a low cost European carrier here since the City has control of two gates.

[CLT2014]

21 minutes ago, jtmonk said:

Quick question, and sorry if this was answered already.  The article states that United, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier and Air Canada are moving to the new Concourse A expansion, what about Delta?  Are they going to stay in the old A Concourse and share it with American?  If so, will Delta get a few additional gates?  I also find it interested that the City is going to keep two gates to themselves in the new Concourse A expansion and lease them on an as-needed basis to various carriers.  This could be a good bargaining tool to get a low cost European carrier here since the City has control of two gates.

Delta is staying put. There aren't enough gates in the A Expansion to absorb all the current A tenants. AA will be taking the gates from UA, SW, JetBlue, etc... and has already started retrofitting the area under the terminal to accommodate baggage for connections, the IT systems, etc... Not sure it Delta is picking up a gate or two or if AA is getting all of the gates being emptied. 

The common use gates will likely be shared between airlines like Frontier and Air Canada that don't have enough service to justify their own gate, as well as any new air carriers that enter and have limited starting service (maybe Alaska or Spirit). The city also controls some gates in Concourse D for international flights, though they are largely used by American (and then the Lufthansa flight), so they could already accommodate a European low cost carrier pending scheduled arrival / departure time. The airport has been pretty open that they won't offer incentives to another carrier though, because AA would be ticked off. If an airline organically wants to come, sure, but the airport won't go out of its way to offer a special revenue guarantee, lease waivers, landing fee subsidies, etc... like the airports in Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc... that had no European service before the likes of Wow Air. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by CLT2014

[dubone]

14 hours ago, soumith050118 said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/01/30/charlotte-airport-previews-concourse-expansion.html

 

"The additional gates are part of a large-scale expansion and renovation that includes eight lanes of lower and upper level entrance roads now under construction and slated to open in February 2019. Soon after that, a three-year main terminal expansion and upgrade will begin."

 

Did the opening of the new entrance roads get delayed?

 

The article does say Feb 2019, which is quite a bit past the "Summer 2018" we have been reading and seeing everywhere including the Destination CLT site.   Projects do get delayed frequently, so it seems plausible, but given it is a public works project, it ought to have the correct date published on the official sites and not just in an article in the CBJ.    Here is hoping they mistyped, but I'm sure it is just the early warning of an official delay.    

Regardless of the exact timing of completion over the next year, I was looking through this detail again, and I am reminded of the old design that had all the clusterfk of small canopies.  I am so glad someone stepped up and planned the overarching glass canopy over the new road.  It will make a world of difference in the appearance of the airport.  

[stiluvclt]

Well, we've seen a lot of photo updates of "A" but not since December have we seen any for the elevated roadway other than the CBJ Feb 2019 remark. Anyone happen to get any photos of the ongoing construction on the elevated roadway?  After 2 months since any published pics we should be able to see some progress. Obviously the redesign for the new glass (plastic) canopy probably means some delay to work those giant supports between the roadway and car rental/parking garage. Just curious.

[Miesian Corners]

From last week. Lighting is being installed. 

[Miesian Corners]

Some images of the remodel we've not seen:

I really like the blue surrounds on the public restroom entrances. They stand out, which is a good thing when you're in a hurry and need to find a place to pee.

I'm bummed the wavy glass was value-engineered out of A North. Looked pretty cool:

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Miesian Corners
Added photo

[jjwilli]

Not sure if this is the reason for the delay of the road way but the City Council just voted on a change order to the elevated roadway contract that will allow 5 crane foundations to be included in the work currently being done.

 

[stiluvclt]

Wowee!, 5 crane bases. Hell-of-a project! Thank you both for the pics, renderings and change order update. I guess we're not going to see too much on the last part of the ER until those new cranes are utilized and removed. Looks to me like there is going to be a s#$%load of activity during arriving/departing in these next 2 years.

[soumith050118]

Once Concourse A Expansion Phase 2, and 3 are finished, do you think Lufthansa will move to the OAL terminal, or stay in the American Airlines Terminal?

Also, in the future, do you think the AA Terminal will become a Oneworld terminal?

Edited March 3, 2018 by soumith050118

[CLT2014]

2 hours ago, soumith050118 said:

Once Concourse A Expansion Phase 2, and 3 are finished, do you think Lufthansa will move to the OAL terminal, or stay in the American Airlines Terminal?

Also, in the future, do you think the AA Terminal will become a Oneworld terminal?

I don't believe they are planning a Customs and Immigration Area in the Concourse A expansion, so Lufthansa will likely stay in Concourse D. It wouldn't be worth building a separate customs area to be staffed just for one Lufthansa flight.

[navigator319]

Looks like new control tower is topped out.

View from Uptown balcony. Not the best photo. 10x zoom on iPhone X

[nakers2]

On 3/2/2018 at 1:07 PM, Miesian Corners said:

Some images of the remodel we've not seen:

I really like the blue surrounds on the public restroom entrances. They stand out, which is a good thing when you're in a hurry and need to find a place to pee.

I'm bummed the wavy glass was value-engineered out of A North. Looked pretty cool:

 

It actually wasn't, went there the other day, it's actually a series of metal panels made to create a waving effect. 

[soumith050118]

Master Plan: http://www.cltairport.com/AboutCLT/Documents/Development Master Plan/CLT ACEP 02232016 - FINAL.pdf

[soumith050118]

Kind of off topic, but when will AA  upgrade CLT-DUB from seasonal to year-long. Bofa has made Dublin their EU HQ after Brexit. Why does CLT-LHR have a second daily flight?

[CLT2014]

47 minutes ago, soumith050118 said:

Why does CLT-LHR have a second daily flight?

Simple. Charlotte and London are both hubs for AA and British Airways, who are in a revenue sharing agreement across the Atlantic and are connecting each other's passengers through the respective hubs. 

Aer Lingus is not yet a member of the OneWorld alliance, nor the trans-atlantic revenue sharing venture, so AA cannot as easily connect passengers through Dublin to the rest of Europe. In London, AA can connect passengers to all of British Airways destinations. 

Also.... the CLT-DUB flight on an A330 seat 247 passengers. Even with the EU office moving to Dublin, it is still relatively small within the Bank of America network and traffic will be split between other major BofA offices as well such as New York and Chicago. I would guess you might get 2-3 people per day going between Charlotte and Dublin for Bank of America specifically if you are lucky. That is 244 more seats to fill, and when the tourism season drops off in the winter, the business traffic probably just isn't there. Otherwise AA would keep the A330 flying to Dublin rather than Punta Cana, Montego Bay, and Phoenix. The reality is the tourism traffic shifts from Europe to the Caribbean in the winter and AA wisely deploys their airplanes where people want to go.  

Edited March 5, 2018 by CLT2014

[soumith050118]

When do you guys think CLT will get Asia service? Where do you think the plane will go to? Unfortunately, AA is very conservative when planning Asia service. 

[jtmonk]

13 hours ago, soumith050118 said:

When do you guys think CLT will get Asia service? Where do you think the plane will go to? Unfortunately, AA is very conservative when planning Asia service. 

As nice as that would be, it's probably a long ways away.  There are other larger markets out there that will get Asia service before Charlotte such as Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Miami (and when I say Asia , I mean Ease Asia/Asia-Pacific since Miami and Philadelphia technically have Asia service via the Middle East).   There is also a Brookings Institute study from 2011 that showed Raleigh having more pax to Asia than Charlotte did.  Basically the study showed that 16.8% (134,350) of international pax into and out of RDU in 2011 were traveling to developing and developed Asia-Pacific, while in CLT that number was 9.7% (102,054).  Now that was 7 years ago so that might have changed but it gives you some perspective of the amount of Asia pax in CLT.     The only way I see CLT getting Asia service in the next 5 years is if the airport and/or business community offers AA or JL a lot of money to start a flight. 

Here's a link to the Brookings Institute study.   https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/global-gateways-international-aviation-in-metropolitan-america/

[KJHburg]

^^^ In terms of Asian service RDU is really going after it but even they acknowledge it could be 5 plus years off.  American just started service to China from DFW about 4 years ago.  RDU wants China service due to Duke, Lenovo etc  but CLT should go over Japanese service like JAL airlines are they not a partner of American? 

[RiverwoodCLT]

Charlotte Metro has 44  companies from China   and 80 companies from Japan.  As that number grows Charlotte many see an Asia route in the future.

 

[NikolaTesla]

On 3/2/2018 at 1:07 PM, Miesian Corners said:

Some images of the remodel we've not seen:

I really like the blue surrounds on the public restroom entrances. They stand out, which is a good thing when you're in a hurry and need to find a place to pee.

I'm bummed the wavy glass was value-engineered out of A North. Looked pretty cool:

 

Does anyone else find the interior colors scheme they have decided to go with cold, boring and uninviting?  I'm far from a interior design expert, but it does not look very pleasing to me. 

[Bikeguy]

This pic begs the question if the new residents of Johnny Harris's River District will have the Allen Steam Plant and its industrial footprint forever in their sunsets.. ? 

[soumith050118]

9 hours ago, KJHburg said:

^^^ In terms of Asian service RDU is really going after it but even they acknowledge it could be 5 plus years off.  American just started service to China from DFW about 4 years ago.  RDU wants China service due to Duke, Lenovo etc  but CLT should go over Japanese service like JAL airlines are they not a partner of American? 

Yes, JAL airlines is a partner of America

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed/2017/09/30/as-american-airlines-moves-boeing-767s-to-philly-charlotte-could-get-more-europe-flights/#47913dd127f3

Vasu Raja said he wanted to add CLT-Europe flights that had connecting opportunities from Oneworld carriers. According to the article, that could include Helinski, Berlin, London, and Madrid,

That could mean either a 3rd nonstop to LHR, year-round Madrid, or twice daily seasonal Madrid. It could also mean new destinations such as Helsinki and Berlin. I know Charlotte has many German-area companies, but does it have many Berlin companies?