Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion

[49er]

This feels kind of hasty like they're scrambling to meet demand for something specific. The concrete work and that refueling area or whatever it is was just built.  

[TCLT]

50 minutes ago, InSouthPark said:

It will be 1.1m walk from end of E to A phase 3.  

 

 

No one will need to make that walk. AA isn't going to operate from any of the A North concourses. And the RFQ keeps the possibility of a second OAL check-in area alive.

[Miesian Corners]

13 hours ago, uptownliving said:

CLT is now taking bids for Concourse A Phase 3...this will be a 7 gate add on to Concourse A Phase 2 which will open up in about 6 months. Any speculation on who will go in here?

Oh good lord! Just go ahead and build a new headhouse and rename all this Terminal 1! 

If Mary Shelley were alive today, she could easily write a book about CLT and call it "Frankenport."

[allthingsplanes]

2 hours ago, 49er said:

This feels kind of hasty like they're scrambling to meet demand for something specific. The concrete work and that refueling area or whatever it is was just built.  

I agree.  I feel like this came out of nowhere.  I've never seen / heard of plans for a Phase 3 and it's virtually impossible to find mention of it anywhere else.

[TCLT]

19 minutes ago, allthingsplanes said:

I agree.  I feel like this came out of nowhere.  I've never seen / heard of plans for a Phase 3 and it's virtually impossible to find mention of it anywhere else.

While the timeline for this third phase does seem accelerated from what I would've expected, the airport has publicly planned for a third additional pier for quite a long time.

From their 2016 capacity enhancement plan:

From their 2017 commercial development plan:

 

[allthingsplanes]

That's true - I do remember seeing those before.  I guess part of my perspective is from the Destination Charlotte page.  It doesn't mention anything about a 3rd phase.

[xapostrophe]

American is severely gate constrained.  D concourse is a disaster and severely limits international flying.  Perhaps AA using some of a north for intl departure gates frees up space for domestic flights?

[CLT2014]

Won't AA temporarily lose some gates on Concourse C when the FIS connector for some gates on C to become international gates + the new Admirals Club is built? 
 

My guess is the airport needs this far north concourse built so they can move some of the airlines at gates A21 - A29 temporarily up to this new super far north concourse. AA will then backfill those gates while some of the gates on Concourse C are closed to maintain their current flight level. 

Then... whether AA gives those gates at A21 - A29 back or works out a deal to grow / take over even more gates with CLT mgmt is anybody's guess. 

[LKN704]

Phase III was always in the works, but I was told it was "permanently" deleted (though nothing is permanent in this industry) along with the OAL terminal that was supposed to be built alongside Phase II. 

In addition to Phase III as TCLT pointed out, you can also see the OAL terminal (stub built into the end of Phase II) and OAL roadway in this rendering:

I don't think there is some grandiose airline expansion plan that CLT has been made aware of - rather Phase III/OAL were both deleted from the airport's plan during the pandemic when it wasn't quite clear if/how the industry was going to recover. IIRC, the timeline for Phase III's construction was always 2025/2026, so technically the airport is simply getting back on target. 

[LKN704]

Here's a tentative schedule of OAL flights this summer:

Spirit: 15 daily flights

• BOS: 1X A320
• LAX: 1X A321N (The departure time on this is horrible - leaves CLT at 23:00 Eastern and arrives LAX at 0115 Pacific the next day)
• FLL:  2X A321, 1X A321N
• DFW: 1X A320
• IAH: 1X A320
• EWR: 1X A320, 1X A320N
• LAS: 1X A320N
• LGA: 2X A321, 1X A321N
• ORD: 1X A320
• TPA: 1X A320

Frontier: 11 daily flights (most flights aren't daily, BWI/BUF/ORD/TTN are served on different days, but service averages 11 flights/day)

• MCO: 1X A321
• SJU: 1X A321
• CVG: 1X A320N
• DEN: 1X A321
• DFW: 1X A320N
• LGA: 1X A320N
• BWI: 1X A321
• IAH: 1X A320N
• PHL: 3X A320N

AC: 3 daily flights

• YYZ: 3X E175

UA: 17 daily flights

• IAD: 1X 737, 3X E175
• IAH: 1X 737, 1X A319, 1X E175
• ORD: 1X A320, 2X A319
• EWR: 3X 7M8, 1X 737, 1X E175
• DEN: 2X A319

DL: 34 daily flights

• DTW: 5X 717
• ATL: 9X 717
• MSP: 4X 717
• SLC: 1X A321
• LGA: 5X CR9
• JFK: 5X CR9
• BOS: 5X E175

SY: 1 flight (operates twice weekly)

• MSP: 1X 737

B6: 2 daily flights (drops down to one daily on some days)

• BOS: 2X E190

WN: 9 daily flights

• BWI: 2X 737
• MDW: 3X 737
• STL: 1X 737
• BNA: 2X 737
• DAL: 1X 737

LH: 1 daily flight

• MUC: 1X A359 

Some observations:

• Delta is larger than Frontier, Spirit, Air Canada, Sun Country, JetBlue, and Lufthansa combined. 
• It's interesting to see how 717 heavy Delta is in CLT is compared to other peer cities. 
• I wouldn't be surprised to see B6 leave Charlotte. Their measly two daily flights on higher-cost E190s cannot be profitable and command a yield, especially when competing against AA/DL/NK. There are rumored to be some station closures coming up, so we'll have to see if CLT is one of them.
• I'd be shocked if more than half of Frontier's recent additions stick around. Both Frontier and Spirit are adding then dropping route pairs like crazy these days to see what sticks. 

[eastsider]

Spirit also has 2 daily to MCO.

Agree about JetBlue, they seem to trim a little more every year. I thought they were supposed to start flying the A220 to CLT last year, obviously that didn't last long if it ever happened.

[49er]

I'm not familiar with how many flights a gate can handle per day. Does Delta taking most of the new Concourse A expansion allow for them to significantly expand their Charlotte operation from 34 flights daily? I'd love for them to compete with AA on some Caribbean and Mexico destinations. 

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

1 hour ago, 49er said:

I'm not familiar with how many flights a gate can handle per day. Does Delta taking most of the new Concourse A expansion allow for them to significantly expand their Charlotte operation from 34 flights daily? I'd love for them to compete with AA on some Caribbean and Mexico destinations. 

Delta is going to still focus on Atlanta for those flights, but probably increasing flights to their other focus cities. Hopefully more to SLC, and maybe eventually adding flights to LAX or SEA 

[CLT2014]

1 hour ago, 49er said:

I'm not familiar with how many flights a gate can handle per day. Does Delta taking most of the new Concourse A expansion allow for them to significantly expand their Charlotte operation from 34 flights daily? I'd love for them to compete with AA on some Caribbean and Mexico destinations. 

Delta has access to 7 gates today so this is really just a move to a different space that has room for a lounge / newer gates, but not a huge growth play. The extra common use gates over there will give them some flexibility if they have irregular ops and a plane is broken at one of the gates though. There is a chance they may go for 1x daily to Seattle to provide connectivity to their West Coast hub and go up against AA. With AA 7 - 8 times daily nonstop to LAX and Spirit now on the route too, I think Delta may avoid LAX - CLT.

There is also 0 chance we'll see Caribbean or Mexico destinations from CLT on Delta anytime soon. The whole point of their hub and spoke network is to route traffic through their hubs (in particular Atlanta for anything / everything Caribbean for the South) and Delta flies very few point to point routes that don't touch a hub or focus city. Delta exclusively flies to Cancun from their hubs and focus cities for example. 

Edited March 4 by CLT2014

[CLT2014]

The 50 seat ERJ-145s operated by Piedmont for American Eagle will be gone at Concourse E by the end of the decade. American has placed an order for 90 Embraer 175 aircraft, which will be operated by their regional wholly owned subsidiaries. The press release does not specifically say Piedmont will receive any, but Piedmont is exclusively flying the 50 seat ERJ-145 right now that are going away. AA will either replace those with the E175 or merge the Piedmont subsidiary into Envoy or PSA. The E175 is the best regional jet out there and feel like a mainline with no middle seats, so this is a big win for customer experience, but some small cities may have service canceled if they can't sustain first class service, et.

Also in the order is 85 A321neos and 85 Boeing 737 Max 10s. Mainline domestic planes continue to get longer and denser... inevitably some of these planes will rotate through CLT or be based here, which means even more passengers in Concourse B and C with these dense planes. AA's current A321neos have 196 seats.  Concourse B is 16 gates for example and having a mix of 10 A321s at the gate,  2 A320s and 3 737-8s at 85% load is 2,500 passengers waiting for planes at one time. 

Existing A319 and A320 aircraft will be refurbished likely in the "Oasis" format with power at every seat and refreshed trim. The A319 will move from 8 first class seats to 12 and the A320 will go from 12 to 16. 

No widebody planes added to the order. AA's been clear they are focused on domestic / North American / Caribbean flying.  

https://americanairlines.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/american-airlines-places-orders-airbus-boeing-and-embraer

Goodbye to the ERJ-145 at Piedmont:

Hello to more E175's!!!

 

 

Edited March 4 by CLT2014

[LKN704]

8 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

The 50 seat ERJ-145s operated by Piedmont for American Eagle will be gone at Concourse E by the end of the decade. American has placed an order for 90 Embraer 175 aircraft, which will be operated by their regional wholly owned subsidiaries. The press release does not specifically say Piedmont will receive any, but Piedmont is exclusively flying the 50 seat ERJ-145 right now that are going away. AA will either replace those with the E175 or merge the Piedmont subsidiary into Envoy or PSA. The E175 is the best regional jet out there and feel like a mainline with no middle seats, so this is a big win for customer experience, but some small cities may have service canceled if they can't sustain first class service, et.

Also in the order is 85 A321neos and 85 Boeing 737 Max 10s. Mainline domestic planes continue to get longer and denser... inevitably some of these planes will rotate through CLT or be based here, which means even more passengers in Concourse B and C with these dense planes. AA's current A321neos have 196 seats. 

Existing A319 and A320 aircraft will be refurbished likely in the "Oasis" format with power at every seat and refreshed trim. The A319 will move from 8 first class seats to 12 and the A320 will go from 12 to 16. 

No widebody planes added to the order. AA's been clear they are focused on domestic / North American / Caribbean flying.  

https://americanairlines.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/american-airlines-places-orders-airbus-boeing-and-embraer

The timing of the Max 10s makes it seem like the conversion is less "American Airlines’ trust in Boeing and its confidence in the 737 MAX family" and more like AA got a good deal on them given the recent news (and entry into service delay for the type) and basically told Boeing that they aren't in a rush for them. 

It's amazing that the E175, which was introduced into service in 2003, keeps chugging along (albeit with a few PIPs). 

Say buh-bye to those nice A319s equipped with in-seat video entertainment and plusher Economy seating as part of this announcement. I found it amusing that the press release originally had a typo that said AA had the most in-seat entertainment of any U.S. carrier - they quickly edited that out and changed it to just WiFi...oops!

5 hours ago, CarolinaDaydreamin said:

Delta is going to still focus on Atlanta for those flights, but probably increasing flights to their other focus cities. Hopefully more to SLC, and maybe eventually adding flights to LAX or SEA 

I'm not even sure if you will see more SLC - they pulled their second daily service to SLC this summer. 

Edited March 4 by LKN704

[csweet]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:07 PM, LKN704 said:

Here's a tentative schedule of OAL flights this summer:

Spirit: 15 daily flights

• BOS: 1X A320
• LAX: 1X A321N (The departure time on this is horrible - leaves CLT at 23:00 Eastern and arrives LAX at 0115 Pacific the next day)
• FLL:  2X A321, 1X A321N
• DFW: 1X A320
• IAH: 1X A320
• EWR: 1X A320, 1X A320N
• LAS: 1X A320N
• LGA: 2X A321, 1X A321N
• ORD: 1X A320
• TPA: 1X A320

Frontier: 11 daily flights (most flights aren't daily, BWI/BUF/ORD/TTN are served on different days, but service averages 11 flights/day)

• MCO: 1X A321
• SJU: 1X A321
• CVG: 1X A320N
• DEN: 1X A321
• DFW: 1X A320N
• LGA: 1X A320N
• BWI: 1X A321
• IAH: 1X A320N
• PHL: 3X A320N

AC: 3 daily flights

• YYZ: 3X E175

UA: 17 daily flights

• IAD: 1X 737, 3X E175
• IAH: 1X 737, 1X A319, 1X E175
• ORD: 1X A320, 2X A319
• EWR: 3X 7M8, 1X 737, 1X E175
• DEN: 2X A319

DL: 34 daily flights

• DTW: 5X 717
• ATL: 9X 717
• MSP: 4X 717
• SLC: 1X A321
• LGA: 5X CR9
• JFK: 5X CR9
• BOS: 5X E175

SY: 1 flight (operates twice weekly)

• MSP: 1X 737

B6: 2 daily flights (drops down to one daily on some days)

• BOS: 2X E190

WN: 9 daily flights

• BWI: 2X 737
• MDW: 3X 737
• STL: 1X 737
• BNA: 2X 737
• DAL: 1X 737

LH: 1 daily flight

• MUC: 1X A359 

Some observations:

• Delta is larger than Frontier, Spirit, Air Canada, Sun Country, JetBlue, and Lufthansa combined. 
• It's interesting to see how 717 heavy Delta is in CLT is compared to other peer cities. 
• I wouldn't be surprised to see B6 leave Charlotte. Their measly two daily flights on higher-cost E190s cannot be profitable and command a yield, especially when competing against AA/DL/NK. There are rumored to be some station closures coming up, so we'll have to see if CLT is one of them.
• I'd be shocked if more than half of Frontier's recent additions stick around. Both Frontier and Spirit are adding then dropping route pairs like crazy these days to see what sticks. 

This is awesome, your posts are always so insightful. 

A few thoughts:

• B6 could upgauge with the complete termination of the Spirit merger? 
• Does WN have plans to bring back PHX?
• AC running (3) E175 flights daily, could YUL be next?
• DL JFK/LGA all regional, will that change? 
• Still hopeful that UA will expand West (SFO)

[CLT2014]

6 minutes ago, LKN704 said:

It's amazing that the E175, which was introduced into service in 2003, keeps chugging along (albeit with a few PIPs). 

It is a great plane and I'd certainly welcome more of them at CLT. The E175 offers all the spaciousness of a mainline jet, with no middle seats, big windows and faster boarding / de-boarding, et... give me a E175 over a 737 or A320 all day!

[LKN704]

42 minutes ago, csweet said:

This is awesome, your posts are always so insightful. 

A few thoughts:

• B6 could upgauge with the complete termination of the Spirit merger? 
• Does WN have plans to bring back PHX?
• AC running (3) E175 flights daily, could YUL be next?
• DL JFK/LGA all regional, will that change? 
• Still hopeful that UA will expand West (SFO)

Thanks for the nice comment, I appreciate it!

JetBlue is in pretty poor financial condition at present, and they are due to implement a massive cost savings initiative within the coming months that will include a network realignment.  This summer, CLT-BOS drops down to a single daily service on T/W/Sa. Unfortunately, CLT is exactly the kind of market that I expect they may drop as part of the realignment. Other cities that solely saw BOS service (IAD, BWI) have also been closed over the past couple of years. 

WN only operated CLT-PHX as a pandemic-era service when flying was down overall and PHX was booming. I can't see it coming back. 

Regarding AC, I remember when they launched RDU-YUL they stated that they would have also liked to launch CLT-YUL as well but didn't have the resources to do both. I could see them launching it at one point - they have really grown the YUL hub over the years and now fly a lot of interesting Francophone destinations (Algiers, Lyon, Toulouse, etc.) exclusively from Montreal. 

Delta had mainline on CLT-JFK pre-pandemic - I believe at one point the route was mostly operated by 717s. I think the 717s have left NYC and are now solely operated ex ATL/MSP/DTW. 

[Vitamin_N]

4 hours ago, LKN704 said:

Unfortunately, CLT is exactly the kind of market that I expect they may drop as part of the realignment.

Do you think AA might restart its JetBlue partnership and codeshare out of CLT with B6?

[LKN704]

2 hours ago, Vitamin_N said:

Do you think AA might restart its JetBlue partnership and codeshare out of CLT with B6?

I suppose they could re-start a partnership in some way but it wouldn't be as extensive as it was previously given the scrutiny it received from the DOJ. It would likely just be related to frequent flyer benefits - that sort of thing. It would also be primarily focused around NYC - a market where AA is extremely weak compared to DL/UA, but is simply too big to walk away from. As the article you posted reference, AA doesn't even fly NYC to Florida outside of Miami - which a huge market in NYC. They dropped a number of high profile destinations over the past few years - Las Vegas, San Diego, and Seattle all come to mind. Granted, their frequency on those routes from JFK was horrible, but in a market like NYC, you have to be in it to win it.

They didn't codeshare to Charlotte before - Charlotte was meaningless to their Northeast Alliance. If they AA/B6 did form a full-fledged codeshare again (which I don't view as likely), DOJ would almost certainly prohibit the two carriers form codesharing on hub-hub routes, just as Alaska is legally prohibited from placing its code on any of AA's CLT-SEA/PDX/LAX/SFO flights. 

[videtur quam contuor]

We have smart and connected people here on this board. Seeing a video with Prime Air planes at CLT made me wonder what the fee/cost/contract is for any and all freight and specialty users that are not on the landside service with passenger airlines. Is it $ per movement? Any information is appreciated.

[LKN704]

For years I have been saying that CLT lacks any sort of air service development program - but based on this PDF, I am happy to say I am wrong. 

https://assets.ctfassets.net/jaw4bomip9l3/1NUhKfrKCtzvuBqGoYsKrY/2ed0e291b7bacd6c3ed9f47aaac993c8/CLT_Affairs_Brochure_2024.pdf

The document is relatively new and is really well written. I am hoping this means the City will start being more aggressive into marketing itself to new entrants. 

21 hours ago, videtur quam contuor said:

We have smart and connected people here on this board. Seeing a video with Prime Air planes at CLT made me wonder what the fee/cost/contract is for any and all freight and specialty users that are not on the landside service with passenger airlines. Is it $ per movement? Any information is appreciated.

Cargo aircraft are still charged landing fees based on maximum gross landing weight (MGLW). I believe it is $0.89 per 1,000 lbs.  In the case of Prime Air, the MGLW of a 763 is around 325,000 lbs, so they essentially pay the City $290 for every landing. There is also a parking fee which is $50 for less than three hours and $100 for anything between three and 24 hours. 

There is likely a fee to use the cargo facility as well. 

[Miesian Corners]

13 minutes ago, LKN704 said:

For years I have been saying that CLT lacks any sort of air service development program - but based on this PDF, I am happy to say I am wrong. 

https://assets.ctfassets.net/jaw4bomip9l3/1NUhKfrKCtzvuBqGoYsKrY/2ed0e291b7bacd6c3ed9f47aaac993c8/CLT_Affairs_Brochure_2024.pdf

The document is relatively new and is really well written. I am hoping this means the City will start being more aggressive into marketing itself to new entrants. 

I often wonder if the reason CLT has failed to attract additional international carriers is the fact our CBP processing is already so constrained? It's a pretty miserable arrival experience. I've never entered RDU from outside the USA, but I can only assume their customs area was under-utilized, seeing as that its only international arrivals were LHR and CDG.

[stw52]

5 hours ago, Miesian Corners said:

I often wonder if the reason CLT has failed to attract additional international carriers is the fact our CBP processing is already so constrained? It's a pretty miserable arrival experience. I've never entered RDU from outside the USA, but I can only assume their customs area was under-utilized, seeing as that its only international arrivals were LHR and CDG.

RDU has way more international arrivals. I arrived from Iceland and was stuck at customs for 1.5 hours because a LHR flight had just arrived before us and they only had two people processing.  Now have my Global Entry card, yay!