Operated by the city of Charlotte's aviation department, Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) is the leading commercial and military airport in the state of North Carolina. Serving the greater Charlotte metropolitan area, CLT is located six miles west of the city's central business district. Occupying a land area of 5,558 acres, Charlotte Douglas International Airport has one main terminal with five concourses and 124 gates and is served by the following airlines:
- Air Canada Express
- American Airlines
- American Eagle
- Contour Airlines
- Delta Air Lines
- Delta Connection
- Frontier Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Southwest Airlines
- Spirit Airlines
- Suncountry Airlines
- United Airlines
- United Express
- Volaris
5 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) opened in 1936
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to create jobs for unemployed American workers. The city of Charlotte received funding from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to build an airport with three runways, a terminal, a hangar, and a control tower.
At the time, it was the largest publicly funded project in North Carolina, costing around $749,985. When the airline opened in 1936, it was little used until Eastern Air Lines began offering passenger flights in 1937. Following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the United States' entry into World War Two, Charlotte Airport was commandeered by the United States Army Air Forces and renamed Morris Feild. During the remainder of the war, the Third Air Force used the airfield for antisubmarine patrols and training.
At the end of the war, the airport was returned to the city of Charlotte, which, in 1954, opened a new 70,000-square-foot terminal and renamed the airport Douglas Municipal Airport in honor of former Charlotte Mayor Ben Elbert Douglas Sr. The name change was appropriate, as it was Douglas who had overseen the airport opening 20 years earlier.
4 Piedmont Airlines was the first airline to make Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) a hub
Before the 1978 Airlines Deregulation Act, most American carriers did not have hubs, preferring to operate point-to-point flights. The idea of having one central hub and operating a spoke system from it did not come along until Delta Air Lines was the first to operate hub and spoke flights from what is today Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).
Realizing that operating a spoke and hub system required fewer aircraft than point-to-point operations, other airlines soon followed suit, including East Coast regional carrier Piedmont Airlines. In 1979, Piedmont Airlines created its first operational hub at what is now CLT.
3 American Airlines has the most extensive presence at CLT
During the mid-2000s, one of the largest airlines at the airport was US Airways, which had inherited Piedmont Airlines Charlotte hub after buying the airline along with Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) in 1987. During the 2000s, US Airways began to have financial problems and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. After emerging from bankruptcy, the airline still had money problems and sought a merger with American Airlines.
The two airlines merged on December 9, 2013, with US Airways agreeing to rebrand as American Airlines. American Airlines is the world's largest airline by passenger numbers, which operates 925 daily departures from its principal hub at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and 690 daily departures from its secondary hub at Charlotte Douglas.
In August 2024, American Airlines expanded its footprint at Charlotte by opening four new gates in Concourse A. This takes the total number of American Airlines gates at CLT to 91, much more than any other airline.
2 Only three of the airlines serving CLT are non-United States carriers
Of the 14 airlines listed above, only three are non-United States carriers. Operated by Jazz Aviation and PAL Airlines, Air Canada Express is a regional subsidiary of Canadian national flag carrier Air Canada. Used primarily to connect small Canadian airports to larger international ones, Air Canada Express does have some point-to-point flights to airports in the United States, including one between Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) and Charlotte Douglas.
German national flag carrier Lufthansa offers daily departures from CLT to Munich Airport (MUC) in the German state of Bavaria. The 8 hr 25-minute flight departs CLT at 18:50 and arrives in MUC the following morning at 09:15.
Volaris is a low-cost Mexican airline at Mexico City International Airport (MEX). Part owned by multi-billionaire Carlos Slim, Volaris has a fleet of 129 Airbus A320 aircraft. Volaris offers one daily flight from Charlotte to Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport (GDL). On the 4 hr 40 min route, Volaris operates an Airbus A321neo. The flight departs CLT at 20:35 and arrives at GDL at 24:15.
1 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) and the future
Currently, CLT can handle 87 arrivals and departures an hour, but this will increase to 107 arrivals and departures an hour once a fourth parallel runway is completed in 2027.
Groundbreaking for the new 10,000-foot-long runway took place in June 2023, costing an estimated $1 billion. To accommodate more aircraft, a further $1.1 billion will be spent adding new gates to expanded concourses. Further growth at the airport will also include a new light rail station connecting the airport to downtown Charlotte and the outlying cities and the towns of Belmont, Matthews, Stallings, and Indian Trail. Once open in 2030, the nearly 30-mile-long Lynx Silver Line will have 29 stations and one maintenance facility.
