Charlotte Douglas (airport)

Early Period

In 1930, the U.S. City Administration received a grant of US $ 200,000 from the United States Office of Public Works for the construction of the first Charlotte Municipal Airport, which was commissioned in 1936. The following year, Eastern Air Lines launched regular commercial flights. The first passenger terminal building still exists as the North Carolina State Aviation Museum.

In 1941, with the outbreak of World War II, the airport was taken over by the United States Air Force , which deployed the Morris Field Air Force Base. The airport was used by the US Third Army for anti-submarine patrols and as a training base for military pilots.

From 1950 to the Mid-1960s: Beginning of the Jet Era

In 1950, the route airline Eastern Airlines launched a route network at the airport. In 1954, a new passenger terminal building with an area of ​​6,500 square meters was opened and the airport changed its name to Douglas Municipal Airport named after the former mayor of Charlotte Ben Elbert Douglas (Jr.). The terminal was located on two floors, while passenger traffic was served only on the first floor. Ticket counters and baggage carousels were located on both sides of the terminal, in the northern and southern parts of it, on the free areas between them were placed office premises, restaurants and offices of various airlines. In 1956, the airport became part of the route network of the Delta Air Lines airline.

In 1962, Eastern Air Lines was the first at Charlotte Airport to launch scheduled jets. By that time, major airlines allocated the airport's passenger terminal areas as follows: Eastern Air Lines passengers served in the west wing, Piedmont Airines and Delta Air Lines served in the central area of ​​the terminal, and United Airlines and Southern Airways served in the eastern part of the terminal building.

Late 1960s - 1978: Before Air Transport Deregulation

In the late 1960s, the airport infrastructure underwent a major reconstruction and expansion of operational capacities. In 1967, Eastern Air Lines opened a new single passenger service unit, moving all its own lounges into it from the west wing of the airport. Eight boarding gates (gates) worked in this block, each with its own departure waiting room, as well as a snack bar and baggage claim room for arriving passengers. Check-in for Eastern Air Lines flights, however, continued to take place in the central area of ​​the passenger terminal.

Two years later, a new passenger concourse of the terminal was built and commissioned on the ground floor in parallel with the existing central unit, which was transferred to Piedmont Airlines, Eastern Air Lines and Delta Air Lines, after which the central passenger service hall was decommissioned and subsequently dismantled. The new competition included separate passenger departure halls, a toilet block and a large baggage claim area with luggage carousels. In the eastern part of the main terminal, United Airlines passenger service remains.

In 1973, Eastern Air Lines received at its disposal two more gates in the west wing of the passenger terminal.

1978-1989: Becoming a Hub

Following the adoption of the Federal Air Transport Deregulation Act, the number of passengers at Charlotte Airport almost doubled between 1978 and 1980. In order to ensure the processing of sharply increased traffic in 1979, a new runway with a length of 3000 meters was built and a new control tower was put into operation. The master plan for the reconstruction of the airport, adopted in 1979, included the construction of new buildings for passenger terminals and taxiways from the airport runways.

In 1979, Piedmont Airlines decided to deploy a transit hub (hub) at Charlotte Airport to expand its own route network. In 1982, a new passenger terminal with an area of ​​30,200 square meters was commissioned and the airport changed its name to the modern Charlotte / Douglas International Airport . In 1987, Piedmont Airlines launched its first non-stop flight to London .

In the mid-1980s, the former passenger terminal building was converted into a cargo warehouse, and more than ten years later it was rebuilt as office space. The control tower was also decommissioned in the late 1990s.

In 1989, the merger of two major airlines, Piedmont Airlines and USAir , merged airline retained the name USAir and continued to further increase passenger traffic at Charlotte / Douglas International Airport .

From 1990 to 2004: expansion of US Airways

The rapid growth in air traffic at Charlotte / Douglas International Airport entailed a process of continuous reconstruction and modernization of the airport terminal complex. In 1990, a new concourse with an area of ​​7400 m² was designed for servicing flights of international and domestic destinations. In 1991, further expansion of the terminal infrastructure continued, aimed at providing passenger flows to the USAir main airline. In front of the main terminal of the airport, a monumental bronze statue of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitskaya was erected, after which the city of Charlotte was named.

In 1992, the German airline Lufthansa launched a non-stop flight to Frankfurt with Boeing 747 . The air route to Germany was soon canceled and restored only in 2003 with flights to Munich on long-range Airbus A340-600 aircraft. In 1994, British British Airways launched a non-stop Charlotte- London flight as part of a partnership with USAir. Subsequently, the flight was canceled due to the fact that both airlines ended up in different global passenger air transport alliances.

The change of the USAir airline name to US Airways and the subsequent large-scale reorganization of the carrier did not affect the status of the main hub of the Charlotte / Douglas International Airport . In 1999, plans were announced for the construction of a new concourse to serve the regional routes of US Airways (now the Concourse E of the airport terminal) and a large-scale expansion of the operating area in Concourses A and D.

In 2002, Concourse E opened 32 new boarding gates (gates ^[6] and US Airways introduced non-stop flights from Charlotte to Belize , Freeport , Providenciales , Punta Cana and Santa Cruz .

In 2003, the main ticket registration area was expanded through the construction of the East Wing, the commissioning of 13 additional check-in counters and a new security checkpoint. Airport Concourse D has been expanded with new 9 gates. In the same year, US Airways introduced new destinations for flights to Costa Rica , Mexico City and St. Kitts .

From 2005 to the present

Following the acquisition of US Airways through a reverse takeover of America West Airlines ^[7] , Charlotte / Douglas International Airport becomes the airline’s main hub for domestic flights. Most international flights are transferred to the second hub at Philadelphia International Airport .

As of April 2007, Charlotte / Douglas International Airport took first place in the list of the fastest growing airports in the United States ^[8] and was included in the list of thirty airports in the world in terms of passenger flow per year. In the immediate plans of the airport management, the construction of a new passenger terminal building in the northwestern part of the complex to serve flights to the Caribbean and Latin America . The US Department of Transportation issued US Airways permission to open a Charlotte- Beijing flight from 2010 with an intermediate landing at Philadelphia International Airport.

Construction

In the spring of 2007, construction of the fourth runway began. The commissioning of a strip of 2700 meters in length and parallel to the first two bands will increase the airport's take-off and landing capacity by about 33 percent. The new runway is located west of the three existing runways. The construction of the runway required the relocation of part of the Wallace Heel Road, which ran along the former western border of the airport.

The project for the construction of the fourth runway consisted of two stages. Work on the first stage began in March 2007 and included land clearing and soil drainage . At the second stage, which began on July 4, 2008, work was done on laying asphalt and installing lighting structures for the runway ^[9] . On the morning of November 20, 2008, the 18R / 36L runway markings were changed to 18C / 36C in anticipation of the forthcoming commissioning of the fourth lane, marked 18R / 36L.

According to the work plans for the construction of the fourth runway, they will be completed in the winter of 2009, and after the installation of navigation equipment, the runway will be operational by spring 2010. The entire project is funded by subsidies from the federal budget , additional passenger fees and issued securities. The construction of the strip will entail a significant restructuring of the roads passing near the airport, including the construction of new road interchanges.

Concourse A

Concourse A contains 12 gates (gates) with numbers A1 - A12.

Gateways A5 and A7 are used by Northwest Airlines to operate flights to Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Memphis International Airport and Minneapolis / St. Paul International Airport .

Concourse A is the only one at Charlotte Airport that is not used by US Airways .

Concourse B

Concourse B contains 16 gates with numbers B1 - B16.

Concourse C

Concourse C contains 18 gates with numbers C2 - C19.

Concourse D

Concourse D contains 13 gates with numbers D1 - D13.

Concourse E

Concourse E contains 33 gates with the numbers E1 - E30, E31A-B and E32A-B.

• September 11, 1974, flight 212 of Eastern Air Lines Charleston, South Carolina - Charlotte plane Douglas DC-9-31 (registration number N8984E). When landing in the fog on the 36R strip of Charlotte Airport, the plane touched the tops of the trees and began to sharply lose altitude. Despite the takeoff mode set by the pilot, the airliner cut off the upper parts of the trees, lost wings, got damaged fuel tanks, as a result of which he lost 6 tons of jet fuel, and crashed into a ravine 5.3 kilometers from the airport. Of the 82 people on board the plane, 10 survived, the famous American actor and director Stephen Colbert lost his father and two brothers in this disaster. The cause of the crash was the gross violation by the crew of flight instructions and the lack of discipline in the cockpit during the landing approach ^{[10] [11]} .
• January 19, 1988, Mountain Air Cargo Erie ( PA ) - Charlotte cargo flight, aircraft de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 200 (registration number N996SA). When landing at Charlotte / Douglas International Airport, the plane went below the glide path and crashed one and a half kilometers from the airport. The pilot died ^[12] .
• July 2, 1994, flight 1016 from USAir Columbia to Charlotte, McDonnell Douglas DC-9 (registration number N954VJ). When landing at the Charlotte / Douglas International Airport, it crashed into a thunderstorm while leaving for the second round after an interrupted approach to the 18R runway. Killed 37 of 52 people on board.
• January 8, 2003, Air Midwest flight 5481 under the US Airways Express Charlotte Greenville / Spartanberg brand, Beechcraft 1900D (registration number N233YV). Crashed 37 seconds after takeoff from Charlotte airport, all those on board died (19 passengers and 2 crew members).
• January 15, 2009, US Airways flight 1549 New York- Charlotte Seattle , Airbus A320 aircraft (registration number N106US). After taking off from New York Airport, La Guardia made an emergency landing on the Hudson River , none of the 155 people on board were seriously injured. The cause of the incident was the collision of an airplane with a flock of birds and the subsequent failure of both engines.

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