CLT2014

UBS has a decent sized team in Nashville already. I'd throw them in the ring for potentially looking to consolidate North American locations for operations, IT, risk, / compliance, et... into less locations as the company integrates and works to break down silos between UBS and Credit Suisse post merger. Maybe Raleigh versus Nashville in the running to be the hub for North American operations / technology.

Advocate Health / Atrium is technically a nonprofit (I know right, LOL!) so they wouldn't appear on the Fortune 500 which is only publicly traded companies. Private companies (like SAS) and non-profits (Goodwill, Advocate Health, et.) don't appear in a Fortune 500 list. Fortune does publish a separate list of America's largest private companies via an estimate (still wouldn't include non-profits like Advocate / Atrium). Currently the largest private companies in NC are Transportation Insights ($6.4 billion) in Hickory, American Tire Distributors ($5.5 billion) in Huntersville, Alex Lee ($3.6 billion) in Hickory, SAS ($3.2 billion) in Cary, and Belk ($3.1 billion) in Charlotte.

They will likely wait until August. Cal and Stanford are still part of the Pac-12 until then.

This video is cool, but still shows 8 gates being closed while the expansion happens. With 9 banks per day, American would need to find a new home for 72 flights per day if 8 gates were closed. A big reason B and C only got cosmetic updates is AA did not want to shut down / lose any gates even on a temporary basis. One option to do what ATL is doing would be a remote tarmac gate with buses / shuttles, but CLT does not have as much flex to lose any gates temporarily as ATL.

CLT has overcrowding problems, but I also don't think a Facebook group exclusive to legacy AA flight attendants for a merger that happened over 10 years ago with US Airways is going to be a healthy space. I'd imagine most topics are a lot of complaining... Complaining US Airways leadership took over American, complaints about the old US Airways hubs and how they compare to the old AA hubs, complaints about benefits, complaints about the ex US Airways team, et... The fact that so many people want to be in a group exclusive to their colleagues before the merger still after 10 years shows just how poorly merging the culture of US Airways and American into one unified company has gone.

Turkish is surprising since they are a member of Star Alliance and would have no connectivity with American for feed on both sides. Istanbul is a very strong hub though and could connect Charlotte travelers well to the Middle East and Africa. It would be interesting to see if American / Qatar try to get ahead of this and launch Doha.

The state literally doesn't want Charlotte to use a transit tax for public transit... so jumping to a tourism tax for public transit is going to be a stretch for them.

Page 81 of their Annual Results shows the $4.117 billion that ties out to Fortune: https://investor.brighthousefinancial.com/static-files/c8ec47b6-565d-465d-a43d-c580bde2d77c Their much larger derivative losses in 2023 (-$3.9 billion) compared to 2022 pulled their total revenue down a good bit.

IMO all this indicates is Tepper is dramatically pulling back on his investments / commitment to the region. I don't think our tourism fund can do much more than $650 million as a mid-size city and Tepper's barely bringing anything to the table proportionally with only a $150 million investment on his end... so it really results in a value engineered plan. We also didn't get state support like Nashville did for their new $2.1 million domed stadium ($760 from local taxes, $500 million from the state, and $840 million from the team). Any chance Tepper might flip the team / sell and he isn't in this for the long haul?

The whole game of funding sources. The stadium upgrades are funded from the tourism / hospitality tax on rental cars, hotel rooms, prepared food, et... which needs to be used for tourism related purposes like the Convention Center, Stadium upgrades, museums, et... but not public transport. North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association has sent a letter to Charlotte that if they even think of diverting the funds, they'll go straight to the legislature to request a complete repeal of the tourism taxes applicable to their industry in Mecklenburg.

Gateway Village is very underutilized so it should have no issue accommodating employees from across the street. Especially if they moved to "hotel" seating like they did at Legacy Union and updated the cubicles (at least from when I was there) to denser seating. I think BofA's move away from assigned seating is realizing a lot of efficiencies in their footprint and don't think they need a new tower.

I'll be voting No. Would prefer to wait until there is a change in the political environment for a tax that supports rail. This will be a tax increase to just stay car dependent.

Typically on the departures level there is plenty of curb space at the end (area in blue), but people panic / want to get over to the right as quickly as possible in the area in red causing congestion right at the start of the roadway. There is a mental model that people think it is going to be a further walk if they drive to the end of the roadway because they can't see there are entrances to the terminal / doors down there too, so they try to cluster around the first door they can see as they arrive up top. Better signage indicating which doors are for different airlines should spread some of the traffic out as the roadway completes (such as getting the American passengers to drive towards the end). Right now almost all the passengers cluster in the first third as there isn't really any signage during construction that is easy to see which curb fronts are for different airlines, and then ironically everybody flying American has a longer walk to get to the far end as they enter through Door 1. The other issue is local O&D passengers tend to be skewed towards flights out of Concourse A, B, and C instead of regional flights in E (largely connecting passengers out there). If you don't need to check a bag, Checkpoint 1 is often the closest to your gate in Concourse A (all non-AA airlines) and gets you into the Atrium area fast. Once the temporary shelters are removed and construction equipment on the inner roadways are gone, it should open up visibility so people can see further down and clearly see there are four entrance doors to the terminal to not panic as much around the first door through the construction. Entrances has been shifting constantly during the construction, so I think many people just go for the first one they can find. The taller signage will also call out the airlines more prominently and should filter passengers more to the door associated with the airline they are flying, having less cars cluster at Door 1. The airport should consider a simple sign like this one from San Diego that had a similar problem with clustering. People started staying to the left for certain airlines because they were told to. We could do something similar and tell drivers to stay left for American, Lufthansa, Volaris, Spirit, et... that are further down so they don't cluster at Door 1 for Delta, United, Southwest, et.

Yes, there are 3 lanes that are not yet open up top, but the plans is for that to host commercial vehicles, hotel shuttles, buses, et.

This summer we have 4 - 5 nonstops per day to SFO on AA. (For reference, Atlanta has about 10 nonstops, Dulles has 10 (hub to hub for United), Miami has 4, Orlando has 3, RDU has 2, Nashville has 2, Tampa has 1, Richmond has 1). American, United, Jet Blue, and Frontier don't fly to Oakland, which has lost a lot of service over the years and OAK only has three destinations in Eastern Time (Baltimore, Atlanta, and less than daily Newark). San Jose service is heavily concentrated on Western destinations. The only destinations in Eastern Time are Atlanta and seasonal service to Boston. I think Oakland's rebrand is too long of a name, but I get they are going for broader awareness that they are a viable airport for servicing the San Francisco Bay Area. OAK is only 19 miles from Fisherman's Warf. SFO is 15 miles. They are both competitive / comparable for many destinations in San Francisco.