Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[CLT2014]

5 hours ago, Take2 said:

Spirit adding non-stop service to Chicago... 

I dislike flying Spirit, but I appreciate the fare suppression they add on routes to provide competition to legacy carriers. Chicago will now have American, United, Southwest, and Spirit. 

It looks like the airport has done some gate shuffling to accommodate Spirit's growth in Charlotte and they largely have gates A28 and A29. Frontier has moved over to A22 where JetBlue used to sit on a gate they barely utilized. JetBlue is now sharing A26 with Southwest (who also uses A24). A26 must be common use as it looks like Spirit sometimes overflows to A26 when A28 and A29 are full. 

Spirit now serves 10 cities from CLT: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York La Guardia, and Orlando

IMO Charlotte based travelers should be against the merger with JetBlue, who will likely dismantle the operations Spirit has here to redeploy the aircraft to their hubs and eliminate many routes (we know the JetBlue team has struggled in CLT and they are down to Boston only). JetBlue just wants Spirit for the planes and crew to bolster their hubs... not the network. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by CLT2014

[kermit]

3 hours ago, CLT2014 said:

…Reasons 10,000 is fine for CLT:

1.) We are not a major international cargo hub and likely will not become one with direct cargo links to international destinations. 
…

I think this is an important and often forgotten point. Given massive volume of passenger operations at CLT we seem like the least appropriate place to build a major cargo hub — it would be counter productive to gum up taxi ways and airfield space with cargo operations and any middle of the night storms would cause cargo delays to ripple into daytime passenger banks. Meanwhile PTI sits underutilized down the road, has better highway connections and is more central to NC population centers. 

Needless to say Steel Creek, Ayersly, River District and Mountain Island residents would also go apecrap at the prospect of middle of the night flight banks. CLT is just too close to town (and in the city limits so the council would be involved) for regular middle of the night operations to be politically feasible. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by kermit

[csweet]

1 hour ago, CLT2014 said:

I dislike flying Spirit, but I appreciate the fare suppression they add on routes to provide competition to legacy carriers. Chicago will now have American, United, Southwest, and Spirit. 

It looks like the airport has done some gate shuffling to accommodate Spirit's growth in Charlotte and they largely have gates A28 and A29. Frontier has moved over to A22 where JetBlue used to sit on a gate they barely utilized. JetBlue is now sharing A26 with Southwest (who also uses A24). A26 must be common use as it looks like Spirit sometimes overflows to A26 when A28 and A29 are full. 

Spirit now serves 10 cities from CLT: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York La Guardia, and Orlando

IMO Charlotte based travelers should be against the merger with JetBlue, who will likely dismantle the operations Spirit has here to redeploy the aircraft to their hubs and eliminate many routes (we know the JetBlue team has struggled in CLT and they are down to Boston only). JetBlue just wants Spirit for the planes and crew to bolster their hubs... not the network. 

This is a great post, always appreciate your insight. 

WN has grown nicely at CLT as well. Once A II is complete and Delta shifts, will any gates open up for non AA carriers? The competition is great for Charlotte and will hopefully encourage AA to continue to invest in upgrades. 

[CLT2014]

19 minutes ago, csweet said:

This is a great post, always appreciate your insight. 

WN has grown nicely at CLT as well. Once A II is complete and Delta shifts, will any gates open up for non AA carriers? The competition is great for Charlotte and will hopefully encourage AA to continue to invest in upgrades. 

I believe Delta's current gates will be taken over by American who will get 6 more gates for their use.

A II will have 10 gates, with 7 for Delta and 3 common use gates any carrier could pay to use per boarding which could in theory support a small entry by a carrier like Avelo or Breeze. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by CLT2014

[Crucial_Infra]

Forgive me if this is common knowledge but will the diagonal runway be closed once the fourth parallel is built or will CLT keep that as a fifth option? Also, will CLT build a fifth parallel someday? I believe there are only 5 airports in the world with 5 parallel runways today: ORD, ATL, DFW, Shanghai, Istanbul. 

[LKN704]

3 hours ago, Crucial_Infra said:

Forgive me if this is common knowledge but will the diagonal runway be closed once the fourth parallel is built or will CLT keep that as a fifth option? Also, will CLT build a fifth parallel someday? I believe there are only 5 airports in the world with 5 parallel runways today: ORD, ATL, DFW, Shanghai, Istanbul. 

Yes, the crosswind runway will be closed. 

There was an excellent planning document publicly available a few years back (that has since been removed) that showed various options for additional runways once the new fourth parallel is built. One of the options showed a fifth parallel runway being constructed over Billy Graham Pkwy (like Atlanta has over I-285). 

The only available renderings related to the project are those that were previously posted here:

Both renderings depict the runway currently under construction at its previous intended length of 12,000 feet. 

[teeg]

11 hours ago, LKN704 said:

There was an excellent planning document publicly available a few years back (that has since been removed) that showed various options for additional runways once the new fourth parallel is built. One of the options showed a fifth parallel runway being constructed over Billy Graham Pkwy (like Atlanta has over I-285). 

You might be remembering a document related to the Environmental Impact Statement process, which became an Environmental Assessment when they decided to shorten the runway.  Documents for the final EA are available here: https://www.airportprojects.net/clt-capacity-ea/ (Documents and Reports tab)

I think that this is the final plan, with no 5th runway, 5/23 deleted, and end around taxiways on both the north and south ends of the middle runways:

[TCLT]

4 hours ago, teeg said:

You might be remembering a document related to the Environmental Impact Statement process, which became an Environmental Assessment when they decided to shorten the runway.  Documents for the final EA are available here: https://www.airportprojects.net/clt-capacity-ea/ (Documents and Reports tab)

I think that this is the final plan, with no 5th runway, 5/23 deleted, and end around taxiways on both the north and south ends of the middle runways:

 

The EA is for the fourth parallel runway so will only show actions related to that project. The 5th parallel is still in the far far future long term plans, but it would be decades away from happening. For example, from the commercial development master plan:

[xapostrophe]

It seems to me that the South cargo area is becoming quite crowded.  When the new taxiway opens connecting the south end of the airport it looks like to me that Amazon loses its place to park.  Anybody know if there is a new cargo facility in the works?  

Seems to me that on the Northwest side of the airport between what will be the new runway and the current 36L there could be some space in that area that would be near the Amazon warehouses on Wilkinson?

[LKN704]

7 hours ago, teeg said:

You might be remembering a document related to the Environmental Impact Statement process, which became an Environmental Assessment when they decided to shorten the runway.  Documents for the final EA are available here: https://www.airportprojects.net/clt-capacity-ea/ (Documents and Reports tab)

I think that this is the final plan, with no 5th runway, 5/23 deleted, and end around taxiways on both the north and south ends of the middle runways:

No, there was a document that showed various terminal expansion alternatives...different renderings for the proposed midfield concourse, renderings for a new OAL terminal headhouse attached to Concourse A North, renderings for various FIS expansion concepts, etc. 

[TCLT]

2 hours ago, xapostrophe said:

It seems to me that the South cargo area is becoming quite crowded.  When the new taxiway opens connecting the south end of the airport it looks like to me that Amazon loses its place to park.  Anybody know if there is a new cargo facility in the works?  

Seems to me that on the Northwest side of the airport between what will be the new runway and the current 36L there could be some space in that area that would be near the Amazon warehouses on Wilkinson?

I believe cargo expansion will be either on the south or east sides of the airport. There's not really any landside access from the north and the topography on that side isn't as friendly.

[teeg]

1 hour ago, LKN704 said:

No, there was a document that showed various terminal expansion alternatives...different renderings for the proposed midfield concourse, renderings for a new OAL terminal headhouse attached to Concourse A North, renderings for various FIS expansion concepts, etc. 

Yep, I remember that now.  

[TCLT]

1 hour ago, LKN704 said:

No, there was a document that showed various terminal expansion alternatives...different renderings for the proposed midfield concourse, renderings for a new OAL terminal headhouse attached to Concourse A North, renderings for various FIS expansion concepts, etc. 

This should be the one you're talking about.

675007205_CLTACEP02232016-FINAL.pdf

[Take2]

Interestingly AA has moved its Doha flight from NYC to Philadelphia. Maybe AA will keep moving it South all the way to Charlotte. With domestic travel souring somewhat, and International travel on the uptick it'll be interesting to see what AA has in store for CLT in 2024-2025.

[BarrenLucidity]

4 hours ago, Take2 said:

Interestingly AA has moved its Doha flight from NYC to Philadelphia. Maybe AA will keep moving it South all the way to Charlotte. With domestic travel souring somewhat, and International travel on the uptick it'll be interesting to see what AA has in store for CLT in 2024-2025.

XLRs and more international because of their range even if it recently got clipped a tad. It'll be a while before we see 787s.

[Temeteron]

11 hours ago, Take2 said:

Interestingly AA has moved its Doha flight from NYC to Philadelphia. Maybe AA will keep moving it South all the way to Charlotte. With domestic travel souring somewhat, and International travel on the uptick it'll be interesting to see what AA has in store for CLT in 2024-2025.

I read somewhere that they will downgrade PHL-DOH on a 787-8 instead and they will get ready for the Australian spring/summer season by using the 787-9s for an extra Sydney trip. 

[LKN704]

22 hours ago, TCLT said:

This should be the one you're talking about.

675007205_CLTACEP02232016-FINAL.pdf 42.34 MB · 14 downloads

That's the one! Thanks so much...I've been looking for it for years! Still an interesting read despite its age. 

13 hours ago, Take2 said:

Interestingly AA has moved its Doha flight from NYC to Philadelphia. Maybe AA will keep moving it South all the way to Charlotte. With domestic travel souring somewhat, and International travel on the uptick it'll be interesting to see what AA has in store for CLT in 2024-2025.

The fact that AA choose to launch PHL-DOH (while QR is also on the route) despite CLT possessing more connection opportunities is indicative to me that the prospects for CLT-DOH are quite low. That said, it could just be a matter of equipment. CLT isn't a 787 base and it wouldn't make sense to open one just to feed a single flight. 

The only long-haul route I see in the immediate future is the resumption of BCN, which was rumored to come back this year. I would be shocked if CLT-BCN did not resume for S24.

[CharlotteWkndBuzz]

Very busy night around midnight last night. Line to cell phone lot was spilling over massively and ppl just parking on the side of the road almost to the entrance of the airport. Lots of baggage claim delays and it was a bit messy last night (basically an active construction zone). Lots of renovations going on. Growing pains but hopefully all these renovations don’t leave too much of a sour taste to visitors flying through. It will be nice when completed.
 

Welcome to CLT lol:

Edited August 7, 2023 by CharlotteWkndBuzz

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, CharlotteWkndBuzz said:

Very busy night around midnight last night. Line to cell phone lot was spilling over massively and ppl just parking on the side of the road almost to the entrance of the airport. Lots of baggage claim delays and it was a bit messy last night (basically an active construction zone). Lots of renovations going on. Growing pains but hopefully all these renovations don’t leave too much of a sour taste to visitors flying through. It will be nice when completed.
 

Welcome to CLT lol:

The severe thunderstorms last night resulted in a ton of delayed flights and diversions to other airports that resulted in a busier than normal rush of arrivals around midnight. With so many ultra-late arrivals, many airlines had smaller teams left behind for overtime pay to unload bags late into the night. Rough day for travel for many and another bad round of thunderstorms expected today that has airlines canceling their flights in advance to avoid the chaos that happened yesterday.

As an example, the Delta team at CLT usually handles their last flight of the night at 11:34PM from Minneapolis. The Atlanta flights ended up so backed up due to storms in both Atlanta and Charlotte that they were unloading bags until 4AM. They must have been exhausted (along with passengers!).  
Delta arrivals from Atlanta:
1719 Delayed from 5:56PM to 11:34PM
2092 Delayed from 9:25PM to 12:34AM
2880 Delayed from 10:55PM to 1:22AM
2819 Delayed from 11:57PM to 3:49AM

Other airlines had rough late night arrivals as well. United 2443 from Chicago from 9:30PM to 1AM, Spirit 3801 from Orlando from 11:14PM to 3AM, American had a ton, et.
 

Edited August 7, 2023 by CLT2014

[tozmervo]

Glad I wasn't on this arriving Frankfurt flight trying to beat these awful storms. 

[CLT2014]

^ The Lufthansa flight is diverting to Newark as the storms have ground stops at Atlanta and Washington Dulles as well, leaving Newark as the closest station for Lufthansa on the East Coast. Despite pushing back from the gate in Munich late, they still looked on track to beat the storms. The 50 minutes of taxiing / runway delay in Munich did them in though. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by CLT2014

[tozmervo]

Oh how miserable! That's got to be a nightmare for the passengers. I can't believe there wasn't a way for it to just go north around the storms and come in the back side? 

[LKN704]

Unless safety/security conditions dictate otherwise and fuel isn't a concern, foreign carriers will almost always divert to a station that they already serve. Newark was likely the best option in this scenario. 

I did find this tweet funny, however:

 

[KJHburg]

I remember when many people from the Charlotte metro area drove to PTI in Greensboro to fly.  Now they are starting to marketing it again.

https://www.rhinotimes.com/news/pti-airport-actively-going-after-rdu-and-charlotte-douglas-passengers/

[Crucial_Infra]

Has anyone noticed that there appears to have been a style guide change with state DOTs for airport signage? Not long ago there used to be highway signs spelling out the full airport name “Charlotte/Douglas Intl Airport” and same for signs in Triangle and Triad. Now these signs all read “CLT Airport” or “RDU Airport.” In Greensboro, the new signs are “PTI - GSO Airport.