PHL

And PIT(#22) is neck and neck with CLT(#23) in the MSA population count, but look what's happened to it over the years...a beautiful <relatively> new airport with complete sections totally dark.

I wouldn't be surprised if the RDU flight is subsidized by some of the Pharma and other big companies in the research triangle area.

Global321

These numbers are highly misleading. The CLT MSA does not count Iredell County which is 20-25 minutes North of Charlotte. Mooresville alone adds 125,000 + to the MSA.

And do not forget about all the people just over the boarder in South Carolina, so add another 50,000 or so.

Also, as others have mentioned, 700+ US/AA flights from CLT already. So amazing feeders.

And add over 90% share of the airport.... so US/AA can push flight prices (up).

And if the light rail connects to the airport in the future, taking the train from RDU to CLT would be possible.

IMHO - 100% the AA/US footprint will be smaller in RDU. The one international flight will be transferred from RDU to PHL or CLT.

MOC991

I think there is a lot that people don't account for in all of this though. CLT has a bunch more lower end airline, factory, and warehouse jobs, other than banking, that don't have travel as a factor. RDU has tech, banking, and biopharma jobs which involve higher paid high skill jobs which means more travel for both business and leisure. To put that more bluntly RDU is the 19th highest income MSA vs CLT at 38th, despite all the banking being there meaning the average is being dragged down a lot by the other types of jobs. RDU is also around 2 hours or less from most of NC which is why the capital was moved there. CLT is 3+ hours from half of the state so it is more convenient for SC than most of NC. Rock Hill, SC is included in the CLT MSA. It is more closely linked with the I-85 corridor places like Greenville, SC than the rest of businesses in NC outside CLT.

At the end of the day, CLT is a hub with lots of feeders and not as much O/D. RDU has much stronger O/D, but it wouldn't make sense as a hub. There isn't really the space to build out for more flights, although the Terminal 1 side is a bit underused now that it is remodeled. It also would create problems if traffic increased and they had to reclassify RDU's airspace. The best hope I'd say would be to offer more flights to long-distance hubs and maybe some EU hubs. It likely won't be AA/US since they have no incentive with CLT, PHL, and BA's LHR hubs, but the other airlines have an incentive to take away some of their business by offering direct flights like UA/LH Star Alliance to Frankfurt. I doubt they'll do it though because they are in self-destruct mode and losing money. I don't think there is much focus on expanding east coast to EU by Skyteam either.

Speedracer2

I think you are wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlot...atistical_Area

FWAAA

No, the US+AA CLT hub isn't 700 daily flights - more like 600, and as the turboprop Dash 8s and the 50-seat CRJs are retired, there will be fewer operations at CLT.

In a word, No. US carries about 90% of the passengers, but most of them are connecting passengers. The share of the local O&D traffic is significantly smaller than 90%.

If US can magically "push flight prices up," then what's Parker been waiting for? He's owned the magical CLT hub since 2005 and hasn't yet "pushed flight prices up." CLT is the lowest unit revenue hub on the east coast, according to AA. Yes, the tiny amount of local traffic pays high yields, but that's the thing - about 80% of the CLT passengers aren't local traffic - they're connecting traffic, and at low fares.

Negative. Those who know something about that flight realize that it's not going anywhere.

wardncsu

Wow there is a lot of incorrect information in this thread.

1. RDU-LHR - This flight is "supported" (subsidized or guaranteed seats sold) by several of the pharma companies in RTP (Glaxo especially) with the understanding that the flight is direct from RDU. Unless this support changes, the flight will stay in RTP regardless of how convenient it is for AA to move it to CLT. The flight has great loads and generates profits for AA
2. RDU is a big business travel location due to RTP. I fly there regularly and the flights are always full, full of business travelers, and arent cheap. AA may have de-hubbed RDU but I doubt they will give up good margin business to Delta or United to route RDU flights through CLT.
4. I doubt AA adds another Int flight from RDU but I could see DL/LH adding a CDG/FRA flight in the future. There are several large companies with operations in Germany which would likely use this flight.

Nicksterguy

Well now that the flight has switched from AA operated to US operated - it has gone downhill. I am not sure it will survive.

morrisunc

This is the only flight I could see AA abandoning in RDU - I hope not. Delta uses as <cruddy> plane on the route too - I was on it yesterday and the F cabin had 4 CK members - meal was the came crap and the wifi worked - I think this is the right aircraft for this route. LHR isn't going anywhere - CLT doesn't have a single flight to Europe with as much o&d as RDU-LHR. While the CLT msa is slightly larger than RDU I would tend to agree that RDU probably has better O&D than CLT.....RDU is more on par with Boston or Austin in terms of the education levels and incomes of its residents - clt has a much larger blue collar population than RDU.

And Bank of America is located in CLT in name only - clt is basically just it's retail banking hub - which doesn't tend to be the high dollar spenders - not to mention its a total 3rd tier investment bank to begin with.

LovePrunes

<redacted>

The point that I and the others who commented on your post are making is that the number of people inside an arbitrary city limit designation are meaningless.

You proved my point for me: a larger population has more air travel demand than a smaller one. Charlotte and Raleigh metro areas (you know, the places where people fly since its NOT just people inside the city limits) are very close in size, one is not double than the other. In fact Raleigh metro is the #1 fastest growing city in the US, Charlotte metro is #2, according the the UN population report, and either 2nd or 3rd fastest on CNN or Forbes. But if it makes you feel better dissecting things by saying more people live inside the city limits" then I guess we'll just let you have your fun.

sources
CNN (lists Raleigh 3rd) http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_es...ies/index.html
Forbes (lists Raleigh 2nd) http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_es...ies/index.html
UN Report (lists Raleigh 1st) http://ui.uncc.edu/story/charlotte-a...un-projections

evanderm

I suppose technically RDU is in Morrisville NC. Population: 21,932 which would mean that the whole town flies into or out of the airport every day.

13thandseven

1. While the CLT economy is primarily focused on banking, there is also a healthy tech sector in CLT with several corporate regional HQs that with highly paid, skilled workers. There's also a strong German corporate presence in the area, thus the longstanding Lufthansa service that is now continuing without *A feed.

2. Wrong. Percentage-wise, yes RDU is vastly more O&D focused serving around 9 million passengers per year. CLT is around 20% O&D, but 20% of ~50 million total passengers is ~10 million, so RDU and CLT O&D is actually about the same.

morrisunc

I can't believe this is even something to be debated on this forum - obviously size of a city proper has nothing to do with air travel demand....in fact, i bet 80% of the business travelers flying into rdu are going to Raleigh proper.

I mean SFO has a population of approx 800K people. Why on earth is it such a major hub?

Silly argument

13thandseven

And ATL, with the world's busiest airport, has a city proper population of only 450k.

3Cforme

The difference in median per capita income between MSA RDU and MSA CLT isn't meaningful; it's not like comparing Austin to Brownsville.

As for 'better' O&D, RDU doesn't have more domestic O&D. Average domestic fares from CLT are higher, too.

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/airfares.../table_09.html

morrisunc

Raleigh and Durham are something like the #2 and #3 most educated cities in America - CLT is somewhere in the 70s or 80s - That's why a city of Raleigh has so many great nonstop options for a city of its size.