Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[LKN704]

AA has modified their planned Winter transatlantic services:

CLT-MUC will not operate as planned this winter and instead will resume 27 March.

CLT-LHR will not operate daily, but will instead operate thrice weekly. Equipment remains on the 772. 

RDU-LHR will not operate as planned this winter (and thus will not get the 77W). 

Service to Frankfurt and Madrid are still scheduled to resume 27 March. I'm hearing that there is a chance that CLT-DUB may not operate as planned during Summer 2021. 

[KJHburg]

very slow rebound but inch by inch gaining numbers at CLT in terms of traffic from the Biz Journal.

""Passenger traffic at Charlotte Douglas International Airport followed a similar trend in August to previous months: a small increase on a monthly basis but still cut in half from the same period in 2019.  About 2.12 million people boarded or departed a plane at CLT last month, representing a 6.1% uptick from the 1.99 passengers who did so in July. However, that's a 50.9% drop from the 4.31 passengers counted there in August 2019.  Likewise, passenger traffic at the Charlotte airport over the past eight months — at 17.5 million — is about half of where it was during the same time frame in 2019 — 33.3 million.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2020/09/29/traffic-at-clt-follows-similar-trend-in-august.html

[LKN704]

Southwest is adding Phoenix nonstop: 1x daily morning departure. 
 

St. Louis also returns for a daily service. 
 

PHX/STL/BNA/BWI/HOU/DAL/MDW is a good mix of cities. Hopefully LAS or MSY will be next. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by LKN704

[KJHburg]

6 minutes ago, LKN704 said:

Southwest is adding Phoenix nonstop: 1x daily morning departure. 
 

St. Louis also returns for a daily service. 
 

PHX/STL/BNA/BWI/HOU/DAL/MDW is a good mix of cities. Hopefully LAS or MSY will be next. 

I was going to go to Arizona this year but postponed it good news.  Arizona is one of my favorite western states. 

[LKN704]

If I had to guess, I would venture to say that Southwest is doing quite well in CLT. These recent adds show that their flights are carrying far more origin/destination passengers (akin to the old Southwest days) than they are connecting passengers. If they were simply going after connectivity, there would be no need for DEN and PHX, HOU and DAL, MDW and STL, etc. 

[elrodvt]

i really hope some competition here will make fares more reasonable. I don't know how to research that does anyone know?

[BarrenLucidity]

On 10/2/2020 at 10:45 PM, elrodvt said:

i really hope some competition here will make fares more reasonable. I don't know how to research that does anyone know?

Without gate expansions additional competition is very tough. Maybe by 2025ish when destination CLT is nearing completion we'll see some United expansion. Doubt we see Delta expand because of ATL. Jetblue will probably avoid, same with Alaska as they're avoiding competing routes due to new code share agreements. Spirit, Southwest, Frontier will probably continue expanding. 

Would really love some international competitors but I can't see anyone but BA or Qatar showing up. 

As long as AA exists CLT will be it's second hub.

Edited October 4, 2020 by BarrenLucidity

[LKN704]

I can't tell if their schedule is wacky, or if something is going on in CLT that day, but I plugged in a random date (10 Feb) and Southwest has scheduled a whooping 38 departures day that from CLT, with the lineup as follows:

BWI (11x), MDW (6x), BNA (7x), STL (2x), HOU (3x), DAL (4x), DEN (4x), PHX (1x)

Whats odd is the timing of some of the flights; some flights to the same destination depart within 10 minutes of one another:

To BNA^

To BWI^

 

Edit: It isn't just Charlotte. It looks like it's system-wide. Albany has 7 departures (39 in total) to Tampa for example that day, 3 of which all depart at the same time under different flight numbers and have different durations.

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by LKN704

[CLTramper]

Taken today.

[CLTramper]

[tozmervo]

 

[CltFlyer]

The Centurion Lounge Re-opened on Monday 10/12.  Limited amenities, but it's great to see CLT be one of the first one's reopened.

Additional General Info:  https://thepointsguy.com/news/amex-centurion-lounges-reopening/

 

[LKN704]

Given where COVID is at right now (and where it is going), I am surprised they are doing this mass opening so quickly. I wonder if they simply wanted to wait for the summer travel season to die down before attempting to open any clubs. I think they were likely facing increasing complaints from card members about the lounges being closed and had no choice but to reopen. 

Quite frankly I am pretty irritated at Amex regarding this whole thing. I get that their lounges are centered around food/drink, but airlines were able to open their lounges with a limited food supply months ago. Giving me a $20 credit monthly to use toward a cellphone/streaming bill doesn't cut it. 

[csweet]

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/american-airlines-renews-charlotte-to-cozumel-service.html
 

Interesting add, but always nice to see an int'l route!

[LKN704]

Somewhat of a misleading article IMO.

AA never discontinued CLT-CZM service. I think they may have halted the route because of COVID for a few months but that's it. It was flying a couple of months ago.

[KJHburg]

The USO center at the airport is opening at the end of the month with limited capacity and limited services.  

[CLTramper]

Foundation work for the roof over the terminal curbside lanes.

[LKN704]

Hope everyone likes 777s: AA just announced that the A332s in long term storage are being permanently retired. 
 

While relatively young (last was delivered in 2014 IIRC) it was a small fleet at this point with the A333s gone and eliminates a pilot group. 

[CLT2014]

48 minutes ago, LKN704 said:

Hope everyone likes 777s: AA just announced that the A332s in long term storage are being permanently retired. 
 

While relatively young (last was delivered in 2014 IIRC) it was a small fleet at this point with the A333s gone and eliminates a pilot group. 

I will miss the layout of the A332 in economy. About 40% of economy seats on an AA 777 are a middle seat, compared to just 25% on the A332. I also loved that all the seats up against the windows were in a pair of two, allowing you and your traveling companion to not have to share a row with a stranger, making for more comfortable sleeping / privacy. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by CLT2014

[xapostrophe]

2 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

I will miss the layout of the A332 in economy. About 40% of economy seats on an AA 777 are a middle seat, compared to just 25% on the A332. I also loved that all the seats up against the windows were in a pair of two, allowing you and your traveling companion to not have to share a row with a stranger, making for more comfortable sleeping / privacy. 

next up....the old 320s, old 737s and later the older 777s.  AA Also mentioned they could retire another several hundred airplanes in the near future.   That is not a good sign for the employees who are still there or the ones who are already furloughed.  Those kind of downsizing numbers would drop the pilot group to around 9000 pilots.   Which would be another few thousand furloughs to pilots alone.

 

Tell your friends and family to get out and travel.   It's safe.  

[atlrvr]

Random anecdotes, but I flew 2 weeks ago to a leisure destination, and the plane was upsized to an A321 and it was still standby.

Figured this coming Saturday flight to Houston would be empty, but got an email last night from American asking if I'd take compensation to change flights because it's oversold as well.

Airport 2 weeks ago felt packed, and others have mentioned how much busier Charlotte feels than other airports.

I assume more passengers getting routed through Charlotte and other direct flights cut, and I guess some "banks" have been cut, but recently it feels, to the passenger, like everything is normal.

[xapostrophe]

5 hours ago, atlrvr said:

Random anecdotes, but I flew 2 weeks ago to a leisure destination, and the plane was upsized to an A321 and it was still standby.

Figured this coming Saturday flight to Houston would be empty, but got an email last night from American asking if I'd take compensation to change flights because it's oversold as well.

Airport 2 weeks ago felt packed, and others have mentioned how much busier Charlotte feels than other airports.

I assume more passengers getting routed through Charlotte and other direct flights cut, and I guess some "banks" have been cut, but recently it feels, to the passenger, like everything is normal.

The other hubs are total ghost towns

[InSouthPark]

14 hours ago, xapostrophe said:

The other hubs are total ghost towns

I flew to Denver a few weeks ago and CLT was MUCH MUCH busier than Denver was (at least in the parts I was in). 

[DavieNative]

2 hours ago, InSouthPark said:

I flew to Denver a few weeks ago and CLT was MUCH MUCH busier than Denver was (at least in the parts I was in). 

I've flown from San Fran and Sacramento recently. Both airports felt abandoned. Charlotte felt almost normal.

[xapostrophe]

2 hours ago, DavieNative said:

I've flown from San Fran and Sacramento recently. Both airports felt abandoned. Charlotte felt almost normal.

Before I was furloughed,  PHL, DCA, MIA total wastelands.   CLT DFW...looked "normal".