Charlotte’s airport recently started negotiations with American Airlines and five other carriers on a new lease agreement that would start in the summer of 2026.
The Airline Use and Lease Agreement will help determine which construction projects the airport undertakes next, after CLT embarked on a multibillion-dollar construction plan over the past decade.
The current lease is for 10 years. It’s unclear how long the next lease will last.
What projects will soon be finished?
The current 10-year lease covers a slew of new projects that directly impact passengers. The most visible is the overhaul and expansion of the main terminal, which includes a canopy over the expanded drop-off and pick-up area. Those two projects cost $600 million. All that work is expected to be finished later this year.
There were also two new A concourses with more gates on the west side of the airport, among other expansions to the concourses. Older concourses are also being renovated.
What about the fourth parallel runway?
The 10,000-foot runway is under construction and expected to be finished by the fall of 2027. CLT recently closed its crosswind runway, so the airport currently has only three operating runways.
The airport is also building what it calls “end-around” taxiways, which allow airplanes to cross the airfield more quickly, without directly crossing the runways.
It’s also expanding the “south ramp” of the airfield. This will pave over much of the old crosswind runway and give planes more room to taxi. It would also allow for the future expansions of concourses B and C, should that happen.
All of those projects were part of the 2016 master plan.
What construction projects are after that?
There isn’t much that’s definite. That’s where a new lease comes in. The airlines — primarily American — have to decide whether they want to pay for the cost of additional new projects through higher fees.
In an emailed statement to Transit Time, American said Charlotte’s airport “is critically important for American Airlines. As the second-largest hub in our global network, we are proud to operate 671 peak-day departures from CLT to 176 destinations worldwide. Key to our growth is a strong partnership with the airport, and we look forward to our continued collaboration on American’s bright future at CLT.”
The airport has tentative plans for a third new A concourse that would add 8 or 10 gates.
There are also tentative plans to extend the B and C concourses with what the airport calls “dog legs” — turning those north-south concourses 90 degrees to add more gates.
If concourses B and C are expanded, the new areas would be significantly wider than the existing concourses. That would give passengers more room to spread out.
But passengers would still have to reach the new gates by walking through the narrow, crowded existing concourses. CLT said it might widen the existing B and C concourses, possibly by pushing out the walls to get more space.
What about a second entrance?
And speaking of space, the airport says it’s studying whether it needs a second, separate security entrance at some point.
Today, everyone flying in and out drives into the horseshoe-shaped access road that funnels all vehicles into a small area.
CLT is confident the access roads for arrivals and departures now have enough lanes to keep traffic moving for the foreseeable future. But if local traffic continues to grow, the airport could build an entirely new security entrance for passengers somewhere else, possibly near the new A gates.
There are no firm plans to do that.
CLT is also considering ways for people to be dropped off along Wilkinson Boulevard and take a shuttle bus to the terminal. That’s also likely years away from happening.
What about plans to expand the Customs and Immigration arrivals area to have more international flights?
There are no plans for more international arrival space, on Concourse D — where the international flights are today — or anywhere else.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t get more international service.
The airport could still get more overseas flights if more airports abroad get what’s known as immigration pre-clearance.
That’s where U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is stationed in international airports, so you can clear immigration before getting on the plane. It’s already in place in multiple Canadian airports and in Ireland and the Bahamas.
That means flights coming from those places don’t have to land at Concourse D. There’s talk of preclearance at London Heathrow. And if that happens, American Airlines could move its London arrivals to a different concourse, freeing up space on the international concourse for international flights to other cities.
American Airlines has given no public indication that it's planning to launch a significant number of new international flights from CLT. (The airline is starting new seasonal service to Athens, Greece, this summer.)
And it’s possible the new Airbus A321LR could make it profitable to fly from Charlotte to more international cities. That plane has only a single aisle, but it has extra fuel capacity. That could make it economical to fly from, say, Charlotte to Amsterdam.
What are the most long-range plans?
There are a couple of big things: One is a fifth runway. It may never be built, but if it is, the plan is for it to be on the east side of the airport — east of the Wilson Air hangar and the aviation museum.
That runway would go over West Boulevard and require the removal of Jackson Homes, a public-housing project.
And the other big one would be a separate, midfield terminal. It would be a long east-west concourse in the middle of the airfield, on the site where the decommissioned crosswind runway is today. And you would access it by an underground walkway, like you have in Atlanta.
But again, those two projects might never be built.
