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Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion


uptownliving

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My guess is considering this move, the mechanics jobs will eventually be moved out of pittsburgh too. That is if they survive long enought to do this.

I get the impression that USAir may also withdraw from Philadelphia? I wonder if plans are being made to shut down USAir as we know it, and then quickly reemerge as a major discounter?

In any case, Delta doesn't look like it's doing too well either.

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I personally think that a couple of large discount airlines should come into Charlotte and take one for the team. 8-)

I agree. monsoon, you've given as good an explanation for USAir's stranglehold on the Charlotte market as any but I have to wonder, why were the others able to enter Philadelphia when local passengers there could have as easily (or more so) made the trip to lower-fare airports in Washington-Baltimore or NYC than we can make to GSO or RDU?

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That is easy.  The O&D traffic in both Philly and DC is a much bigger percentage of the total traffic.  USAir is not the powerhouse in those markets as they are in Charlotte.

I wonder though, if Charlotte didn't have USAir what would be the O&D traffic out of Douglas that's now bleeding to CAE, GSP, GSO, and RDU?

Edited by Phillydog
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I'd imagine it would be significant, PhillyDog. In fact, I was just looking over a thread elsewhere that ranked the nation's airports by passengers for 2003, and there was GSO ranked 85th with 2.57 million passengers/year. Gotta wonder how many of those were Charlotteans venturing 1.5 hours down I-85...

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WCNC reported this morning that air fares rose 9.5% in Charlotte in the past year whil the national average was just 1.5%. They are milking Charlotte passengers as much as they can. :(

I wish that USAir would see how much their local fares drive (literally) potential passengers away. I don't bode them ill, but if they go under, it may be in part b/c they've turned their backs on local passengers here.

I wonder if Jet Blue, Southwest, Song, etc., use local boardings in Charlotte to continue to avoid flying here? I wonder, if there were concrete numbers reflecting how many local passengers travel to GSO, RDU, GSP, etc., to fly for less, if they wouldn't be more inclined to come here.

I would imagine, if one of these did, that USAir would find it hard to remain in business. SUre wish that local officials would do more to attract them though...it seems like the voters would see that USAir's higher-than-average fares out of Charlotte actually function as a subsidy!

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I think Charlotte's O&D would be a lot higher if US Airways didn't have a strangle hold on CLT. Take Raleigh/Durham for example it has higher O&D than the following cities, even though it's smaller than they are, because it has 4 low cost carriers (LCCs) flying to 10 airports to keep the majors in check and no one carrier completely dominates the airport.

[B]Airport            O&D passengers per day[/B]

Raleigh/Durham        17,336

Pittsburgh            15,723  (dominated by US Airways)

Cleveland             15,596  (dominated by Continental)

Charlotte             11,324  (dominated by US Airways)

Cincinnati             9,205  (dominated by Delta)

Memphis                7,498  (dominated by Northwest)

Richmond               4,597  (no LCC presence, big 6 airlines only)

Note:  I just choose some cities that had unusually low O&D for their size.

Charlotte, Cincinnati, and Richmond are always among the most expensive airports to fly from.

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TravisNC...what is the date for those O/D figures...I have seen recent Charlotte O/D numbers closer to 18,000 per day.

They're from the Department of Transportation: Office of Aviation Analysis from the 3rd Quarter of 2003. They're the latest numbers I know of. http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/X-50%20Ro...rfarereport.htm If you click on "Table 6" it will show a list of all the city pairs with at least 10 passengers/day. It's really hard to read unless you import it in to a spreadsheet program like Excel. If you don't see a particular city pair then look in the section for the other city. For instance Charlotte-Boston is listed under Boston only.

These numbers won't give the total O&D since they don't include city pairs with less than 10 passengers/day (both ways), but at least they're fairly close and each airport is proportional to the others. I don't think that could account for the 6,600+ difference in our numbers. It's also important to remember that the numbers change each quarter. Here are the numbers for the past 6 quarters:

Q2 2002 12,531

Q3 2002 12,424

Q4 2002 11,813

Q1 2003 10,144

Q2 2003 12,180

Q3 2003 11,324

Where did you find the 18,000 number? I'm always interested in finding more info on O&D statistics.

Edited by TravisNC
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The 18,000 number is from the TSA...they said they average screening 18,000 people per day...I am sure there are some people that come outside the secure area to get a smoke in before changing planes. That number came out about a month ago...making it a 2Q 2004 number. Maybe they include employees in that number.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The rumor mill is a swirling that Southwest Airlines will start serving CLT in 2005. Jet Blue also has plans to serve CLT in 2005. Looks like 2005 will be the year of low fare airlines at CLT. Hopefully they will wait to serve CLT till next summer when the new 3000 space parking deck is complete. If they come before that, Parking will be an absolute nightmare.

deckview1.JPG

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I don't fly a lot, so this doesn't do as much for me. I'm actually more concerned with the health of the airport. This low-fare competition will obviously damage US Airways' profits here in Charlotte. What if this is the straw that breaks that camel's back? If US Airways folds, the airport will downsize bigtime, leaving hundreds of local workers unemployed...anyone concerned?

As a person who flies very little, that is the larger concern to me.

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