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Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion


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31 minutes ago, CarolinaDaydreamin said:

Paris to Réunion is a domestic, non passport flight, and its never considered a "longest flight" even though its 5,800+ miles. 

Are you sure? Reunion isn't part of the Schengen area and has it's own visa policy separate from Metropolitan France. 

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So what is the distance of this new nonstop CLT to Honolulu flight? Is it longer than that Boston flight?  

Since we are talking about long flights what are the longest flights in the world including international?

I have been on the DFW to Hong Kong flight it was about 15 hours nonstop.   and I have been on the LAX to Sydney nonstop and it was about the same.  

 

 

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44 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

So what is the distance of this new nonstop CLT to Honolulu flight? Is it longer than that Boston flight?  

Since we are talking about long flights what are the longest flights in the world including international?

I have been on the DFW to Hong Kong flight it was about 15 hours nonstop.   and I have been on the LAX to Sydney nonstop and it was about the same.  

 

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/qantas-longest-flight-new-york-sydney-project-sunrise-review-pictures-2019-10

I remember seeing this story (shockingly this was only a year ago?!) Sydney to NYC nonstop was 20 hrs

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1 hour ago, KJHburg said:

So what is the distance of this new nonstop CLT to Honolulu flight? Is it longer than that Boston flight?  

Since we are talking about long flights what are the longest flights in the world including international?

I have been on the DFW to Hong Kong flight it was about 15 hours nonstop.   and I have been on the LAX to Sydney nonstop and it was about the same.  

 

 

CLT-HNL distance is comparable to a continental Europe flight. Shorter than CLT to Rome, but longer than any other transatlantic flight that CLT had pre-Covid. AA is blocking it at 10 hours CLT-HNL and 9 hours HNL-CLT.

DFW-HKG was the 4th longest flight when it launched but a lot of new ultra long haul flights have started since then. Current longest is SIN-JFK on Singapore Airlines.

 

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1 hour ago, LKN704 said:

I took a nap with a book in my lap and when I woke up the book had a Singapore Airlines bookmark in it (at the exact page I left it at). Before I went to sleep I just took off my shoes without untying them and when I woke up the shoelaces were neatly untied. 

OMG I would never go to sleep. That creeps me out :shok:

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1 hour ago, LKN704 said:

CLT-HNL is still shorter than the now cancelled Rome and Rio flights from CLT. 

Longest flight I ever did was SFO-SIN on Singapore Airlines. We were scheduled for 17 hours block time. Once I factored in the time I was in my seat before we pushed back (30 mins), the time we sat in SFO because of fog delays (60 mins), the flight itself (turned out to be 17:14 take off to touch down due to bad winds over the Pacific), and then the time it took from landing to disembark (20 mins, I was seated in the last Economy section),  I was aboard the plane for over 19 hours. 

Frankly once you do a flight like that once or twice it isn't as bad as you would expect. They keep you pretty stuffed with food (two actual hot meal services, and then they walked around every 20 mins or so with sandwiches, chips, candy bars, fresh fruit, etc) and the service on Singapore in Economy is miles ahead of any other US carrier (Even in a premium cabin)...I took a nap with a book in my lap and when I woke up the book had a Singapore Airlines bookmark in it (at the exact page I left it at). Before I went to sleep I just took off my shoes without untying them and when I woke up the shoelaces were neatly untied. 

The strangest thing about that flight is the woman in my row:

1) Never got up once during the flight

2) Never ate/drank during the flight

3) Played Candy Crush on her iPad the entire 19+ hours

Too funny.  On my Hong Kong flight I got up repeatedly chatted it up with other Texans heading to Hong Kong.  (evidently a good number of Asians and Chinese in Houston and Dallas areas)  I helped myself to snacks they left out (American Airlines) Watched multiple movies  including my long flight favorite Caddyshack. I am sure people were wondering why I was laughing in the middle of the night I could not help it.  I wear my special compression socks but the key is that you need to get up and about on you could develop a bloodclot in your legs.  Of course I was ready to go off but I usually spend the first night at an airport hotel and run and take a shower then to bed.   Next morning I was ready to seize the day.  Next long flight when it is okay will be to Singapore.  I may have to see about the Singapore Airlines as I have they are great! 

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8 hours ago, KJHburg said:

 I may have to see about the Singapore Airlines as I have they are great! 

They are great. But I think Cathay Pacific is a tad bit better. Singapore's hard product is better, at least in Economy (more food/drink choices, more comfortable seats, amenity kits, etc), but I find the actual service, while professional, to be a tad bit robotic to the point that it is slightly creepy. 

I may be biased because a close friend of mine is a cabin crew member for Cathay, but I think Cathay's crews are much more warm and genuine. Plus their cockpit crews usually all have this ridiculously stereotypical British accents and I always get a kick out of them saying schedule (shezd-yool). 

Back on topic to CLT, it's too bad none of these great carriers will ever service the city.

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A friend of mine just posted that AA called the majority of flight attendants to come back to work! Can’t find a link to this news but I’ll post when I find it.

The Covid relief bill (that’s currently in limbo) provides a second round of payroll support money for airlines that requires keeping everyone (including those furloughed in October) on payroll until March 31. So AA is starting the process of returning those folks to the payroll. It’s more complicated than just calling everyone back and it’s unlikely any of the furloughed flight attendants will actually be working flights for a couple months at the soonest. But they’ll be paid.
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/26/2020 at 11:44 AM, TCLT said:


The Covid relief bill (that’s currently in limbo) provides a second round of payroll support money for airlines that requires keeping everyone (including those furloughed in October) on payroll until March 31. So AA is starting the process of returning those folks to the payroll. It’s more complicated than just calling everyone back and it’s unlikely any of the furloughed flight attendants will actually be working flights for a couple months at the soonest. But they’ll be paid.

It passed.   I was recalled, but it doesn’t look like AA will train us any time soon.  At least we are paid through April.   Hopefully the vaccine is successful and the industry can see a recovery.  Looking forward to seeing  CLTs future.

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Are furloughs based on seniority by base or system-wide? It seems like the CLT based crew may be younger / less tenured and possibly disproportionately impacted despite our hub not being as shut down as others? I've been on a couple flights that would typically be a CLT based crew that have been operated by rather senior Boston, New York, Miami, et. crews from legacy AA teams. 

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Are furloughs based on seniority by base or system-wide? It seems like the CLT based crew may be younger / less tenured and possibly disproportionately impacted despite our hub not being as shut down as others? I've been on a couple flights that would typically be a CLT based crew that have been operated by rather senior Boston, New York, Miami, et. crews from legacy AA teams. 

For union groups it’s typically based on systemwide seniority. Then people have to shuffle bases based on seniority to fill wherever the open positions are. Pilots are more complicated because they also decide aircraft type based on seniority which can cascade into a ton of retraining. One reason why AA furloughed significantly less pilots than any other group in October.
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12 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

Are furloughs based on seniority by base or system-wide? It seems like the CLT based crew may be younger / less tenured and possibly disproportionately impacted despite our hub not being as shut down as others? I've been on a couple flights that would typically be a CLT based crew that have been operated by rather senior Boston, New York, Miami, et. crews from legacy AA teams. 

The exact opposite is true.   Charlotte is actually very senior.  New York and Los Angeles are by far the most Junior.  

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23 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

I've been on a couple flights that would typically be a CLT based crew that have been operated by rather senior Boston, New York, Miami, et. crews from legacy AA teams. 

Spitballing on this, because I don't know for sure if or why CLT would see more flights crewed from other bases, but AA drastically pulled down flying at most of their hubs with the exception of DFW and CLT (and to a lesser extent MIA). So flights that normally might've been operated nonstop from NYC or BOS for example are replaced by connections through CLT and those crews could be operating flights to here instead of to other destinations. And with Florida taking such a large share of current flying demand, AA has increased capacity to the MIA hub which may be resulting in more MIA crewed flights here.

Also, the furloughs to the flight attendants were deep, really really deep. [mention]xapostrophe [/mention] would know better than me, but I'm pretty sure every FA hired after the AA/US merger (so 2013) was furloughed and the cuts went further back than that in seniority. So any FA still working flights now will be quite senior because that's all that's left.

10 hours ago, xapostrophe said:

The exact opposite is true.   Charlotte is actually very senior.  New York and Los Angeles are by far the most Junior. 

I've heard that cost of living is a big reason why senior FAs snag CLT base slots. Is that the main reason? Or are there also more favorable trips or other work conditions out of this hub?

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12 hours ago, TCLT said:

Spitballing on this, because I don't know for sure if or why CLT would see more flights crewed from other bases, but AA drastically pulled down flying at most of their hubs with the exception of DFW and CLT (and to a lesser extent MIA). So flights that normally might've been operated nonstop from NYC or BOS for example are replaced by connections through CLT and those crews could be operating flights to here instead of to other destinations. And with Florida taking such a large share of current flying demand, AA has increased capacity to the MIA hub which may be resulting in more MIA crewed flights here.

Also, the furloughs to the flight attendants were deep, really really deep. [mention]xapostrophe [/mention] would know better than me, but I'm pretty sure every FA hired after the AA/US merger (so 2013) was furloughed and the cuts went further back than that in seniority. So any FA still working flights now will be quite senior because that's all that's left.

I've heard that cost of living is a big reason why senior FAs snag CLT base slots. Is that the main reason? Or are there also more favorable trips or other work conditions out of this hub?

I am not sure how far back the FAs furloughs went.  But it was several thousand of them.  Definitely pretty deep.  On the pilot side around 2000 pilots were supposed to be furlough I think closer to 1600 ended up being furloughed because of the mitigation agreements the union and company came up with.

As far as why CLT was senior...well cost of living is one of them.  ALSO they closed up PIT and a large portion of that base moved down here, pilots, FAs, Mechanics, cleaners etc.   So overall the base is senior, lots of USair people.  Just like DFW is fairly senior with AA people.

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I have noticed that the number of AA flights operated by A319s to/from CLT has dramatically reduced (just 18 flights today, for example) and the majority of them A319 (12 flights) are operated by the "Enhanced" A319 subfleet (equipped with winglets, in-seat video,  better performance). AA has traditionally used the subfleet on DFW/MIA-Latin America/North South American runs (Miami-Manaus, Brazil) or runs to Western mountain towns that have short runways, etc. 

Clearly their characteristics aren't needed on any route from CLT (with the exception of Jackson Hole) so I imagine they are being rotated throughout the system more simply because the international flying they usually do is halted because of COVID? I've really never seen them before at CLT until now. 

These A319s (together with the premium transcon A321) are the only narrow body planes that will not go through the dreaded Oasis program and will keep their video screens. A very nice ride compared to the scrappy old US Airways planes.

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Covid-19 hasn't slowed down the $600M/366,000 sqft  Terminal Lobby expansion at CLT Airport. Some good photos courtesy of the airport's FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/260026724048476/posts/3905210062863439/?d=n

Added bonus, a previous post on their FB page has a night time view of the Charlotte skyline. 

Edited by HopHead
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Another new domestic route.  This time Alexandria, LA (AEX).  

https://www.kalb.com/2021/01/15/american-airlines-and-aex-announce-new-air-service-to-clt/

Bookable starting on Sunday 1/17.  

One daily flight operated by a CRJ-700.  Evening departure from CLT and early morning return from AEX.  Similar to the Sioux Falls and Appleton additions.

It's great to see these adds continue during the pandemic!

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