cltcane

aka the Levine La Quinta (or Peebles Plaza)

WOW, NEVER EXPECTED THIS!!! (How to you change the font color to blue?)

Not getting my hopes up, but a United Club would be a great and very welcome addition! I’ve always thought the second floor of A-North was wasted space and should have been designed for lounges. I also hope that United will add service when A-North Phase 2 opens (although they seem to be under-utilizing the gates they have now). They’ve upgauged a lot of flights to mainline, but it would be nice to have more than 3 flights a day to IAD, IAH and ORD (DEN is 2 and EWR is 5 most days). Also not likely, but I’d love to have at least 1 daily flight to SFO and LAX timed for Asia and Australia connections. Edit: Save for 2 daily SFO flights, RDU, which has a United Club, has the same or a similar number of daily flights to United hubs.

Nashville is essentially guaranteed a team at this point, and my money is on the sleeper candidate, Salt Lake City (which has an ownership group and site ready), to get the other. MLB could use another team out west, and the last two expansions saw teams from each side of the country added (Miami and Denver in ‘93 and Tampa and Phoenix in ‘98). If Charlotte had a viable ownership group and plan in place, I think we could remain in the mix, but I just don’t see Raleigh being a serious contender, especially with the other expansion team just a state away. The Triangle is all about college sports with the Hurricanes giving the northern transplants a pro team to cheer for, plus Raleigh doesn’t have the corporate sponsorship base or central location in the Carolinas that Charlotte does that would realistically help them move ahead of Charlotte and leapfrog other contenders.

I hope the mezzanine renovation and expansion adds some much-needed lounge space. AA desperately needs more Admirals Club capacity, and it would be great to get a Capital One/Chase Sapphire/Plaza Premium lounge to ease Centurion Lounge and Club at CLT overcrowding.

Tepper and Levine deserve each other. Bets on who bamboozles who first?

Seems strange to us, but that’s a pretty common way to pay for online purchases in Mexico, which is much more reliant on cash. There is an OXXO (a convenience store) on almost every corner across the country. Also, I’ve flown Volaris and VivaAerobus around Mexico quite a bit and wouldn’t hesitate to fly either again. Sure, they’re the Spirit and Frontier of Mexican airlines where everything beyond your seat is extra, but they have new Airbus planes, friendly crews, and good on-time performance. I wish Volaris would add a flight to MEX in addition to the current service to GDL from CLT.

I’m partial to the University of New Jersey at Durham.

Finally found the permit for the new The Club CLT lounge on A North. $2.38MM to build a 5,729 SF lounge with the rendered bar, food prep area, and restrooms (presumably single-occupancy). For comparison, the Admirals Club on B is approximately 4,500 SF and the Centurion Lounge is approximately 13,000 SF. Definitely a nice addition, especially when flying a non-AA carrier, but I imagine this lounge will be at capacity often since will be accessible with Priority Pass and LoungeKey (the developer, Airport Dimensions, is owned by the same parent company). https://webpermit.mecklenburgcountync.gov/download.aspx?PosseObjectId=407827637

This was the rendering released for Marcus Smith’s failed MLS franchise bid a few years ago. Sure, this is sexy, but it was never going to happen. I am perfectly happy with a reconstruction of the original stadium (reusing stone and recreating period architecture) for community and minor league/smaller major league sports use. It’s not fancy, but it’s a great amenity that’s appropriately scaled for the neighborhood.

AA has apparently been looking for space for another (much needed!) Admirals Club, and I would guess the upstairs level of the atrium that is/was occupied by airport offices moving offsite would be a more likely location for that lounge. Not the same big windows and columns in the renderings up there. Also, I assume “full-service” in this case just means food and drinks, not hot entrees. I’ve been to just about every The Club location at least once, and they’re all essentially the same. The adjective-filled press release for one of the newest locations at MSY said to expect “unique New Orleans-inspired cuisine from Chef John Folse”, but that was a reheated pre-made “gumbo” plus the usual sandwiches/wraps and snacks. It’s a shared pay-per-use lounge that will accept Priority Pass and Lounge Key members (the lounge developer/manager’s parent company, Collinson Group, company also owns those programs), so I’m not expecting high-end F&B or other amenities. I will just happily take another lounge option (especially on A-North, if that’s where it will be located) with a much nicer design than existing locations and the potential for some local craft beers.

It’s not a huge area for sure, but neither is the rendered space. The Club Lounges don’t require full kitchens like Centurion Lounges (they have a small selection of sandwiches/wraps, a heated pre-made soup or two and some basic snacks vs. a full hot food selection), so I think this fits. Restrooms would just be outside the lounge in the hall behind the bar or there could possibly be two single-occupancy restrooms where the two doors are in the back left corner of the rendering (also common for The Club lounges). I have no direct knowledge and could be totally wrong, but I can’t think of anywhere else in the existing terminal where this lounge could be located.

Rocking chairs removed because that area is being turned into The Club CLT? Obvious spot for a lounge (although I assume restrooms would be outside), and the rendering of the exterior wall matches.

The renderings for the new The Club lounges at CLT and SFO are very different from the other locations (much nicer, IMO), so I wonder if we are getting one here? I reached out to both CLT the lounge developer/operator a few weeks ago to see where and when the The Club would be opening. The former said they couldn’t comment, and I never heard back from the later.

August 13, 2019: Thank you for visiting The Club CHS. We hope you enjoyed your stay. CLT, your home airport, is certainly a location where we hope to open a Club in the future. We appreciate your interest and your feedback.

Me too! My phone actually did overheat yesterday while leading a conference call from my sunny condo courtyard. Was using it as a WiFi hotspot too, so double whammy.

Because the writer, Ted Reed, is a former Observer columnist who still lives here and was probably just as excited as us to see a Qatar 77W at CLT.

Yes, it opened (briefly) in late February, and I had a chance to visit a few days later. Amex just announced that they will be slowly reopening lounges starting in early October, but a reopening date hasn’t been set for CLT.

Thanks for the unintended 90s Erykah Badu flashback, tarhoosier!

AA is also adding FSD (Sioux Falls, SD) 1x daily on a PSA CRJ-700 starting 11/4. A seasonal RAP (Rapid City, SD) flight has been around for a couple years, but I don’t remember any previous CLT-FSD flights. https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/293451/american-airlines-w20-north-america-network-additions-as-of-30aug20/

Nice to get this route back seasonally! I just returned from a 30-day working vacation in Mexico, including a long weekend stay in Puerto Vallarta and neighboring Sayulita on the Riveria Nayarit. Pro Tip: If you’re on the west coast of Mexico, don’t let the US Department if State’s Do Not Travel warning scare you away from Mazatlan (in Sinaloa) or Acapulco. Both are beautiful, and I couldn’t have felt more safe, even after dark. Plus everything is cheaper, the food is better, and you actually feel like you’re in Mexico.

Are they going to project their logo into the night sky like a Bat, I mean Bank, Signal? That would be pretty cool, except... does purple light help you sleep? I already get the glow from the light sabers through my bedroom window.

Don’t hate on Boise! It actually has a nice little skyline is a great town . And fun fact: it has the largest concentration of Basques in the US.

I think this would be a great way for BofA to spend some of the $1B it has committed to advancing racial equality and economic opportunity. Subsidize rent and/or provide low/no interest loans to small and minority-owned businesses to create a diverse retail destination (and small farmers market!) in the shadow of their world HQ building.

The types of financial services jobs in Charlotte DO NOT generate any meaningful international travel demand. Folks here make a good living supporting domestic consumer and small business banking operations and doing back office work (things like risk, compliance, legal, technology, HR, etc.), but those aren’t jobs that often require domestic travel, much less international travel. I think Charlotte will continue to add those types of jobs, but that will not get us non-stops to any global financial centers that are not already served from CLT. With modern technology that allows global teams to engage virtually (I talk to my teammates in APAC, EMEA and LATAM daily), banks are not going to buy enough business class seats to send employees from cost centers (vs. profit centers) halfway around the world for face-to-face meetings to make non-stop flights viable. Any additional international service we get once air travel recovers post-COVID will be due to AA’s prioritization of CLT as a low-cost connecting hub and the introduction of long range narrowbodies that make service to secondary European leisure destinations feasible, not because Charlotte has emerged as a global financial hub.