The weather is getting warmer with just a few weeks to go until spring. That means Charlotte's airport will be getting busier as the travel season picks up. And Charlotte’s largest carrier — American — is in the midst of negotiating a new lease with the airport. For more, Ashley Fahey of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: The story in The Ledger calls this new lease critical. Why is that?
Ashley Fahey: So, American and the airport they've had their current lease since 2016, so about 10 years now. Usually, a lot of financial details between the airport and American, which of course is CLT's dominant carrier, are kind of ironed out through this process. We know from the current lease, which was again signed about 10 years ago, a lot of the improvements at the airport that a lot of passengers have probably seen, including the concourse and gate updates, were sort of negotiated with the airport in that lease. So we don't know what's in the lease that's currently being negotiated, but a lot of the financial agreements and even improvements at the airport are kind of done through this process.
Terry: As I mentioned, travel season picks up heading into spring and summer. Are passengers at Charlotte Douglas going to notice any effects of this lease negotiation?
Fahey: Probably not right away. The new lease, which is expected to be signed or at least agreed upon when the current one ends on June 30, will be for probably longer-range projects. We know that the airport would like to see additional gates on Concourse B, Concourse C, but I wouldn't expect anything imminent.
Terry: Let’s go to an update from one of Charlotte’s best-known homegrown tech companies, LendingTree. It said this week it’s fully embracing AI. What might that mean for workers and customers?
Fahey: The new LendingTree CEO, Scott Peyree, he has been very bullish about the potential for AI. He said in the earnings call this week for LendingTree that he sees these tools “as fantastic opportunities for our business” and a key component of the strategy. That includes how customers will shop for their products on their website. I should also note there were a couple of dozen layoffs from LendingTree just a few weeks ago that we reported on, and a lot of those job cuts were attributed to AI and sort of efficiencies the company can now have through the use of AI. Certainly, it's going to be some consumer-facing stuff and some efficiencies on the back end, it seems like.
Terry: Over now to Discovery Place in uptown, where some changes could be in the works. Like what?
Fahey: The city and Discovery Place leadership have been talking about a reimagining of Discovery Place. What that looks like is still not fully clear, but Discovery Place leadership would love to see an aquarium as part of either their uptown campus or another site outside of uptown. One of the challenges with the current uptown location is that it's going to be very hard to expand it either vertically or horizontally.
The city and Discovery Place are sort of considering, do we need to do a mixed-use redevelopment here? Do we need to relocate the museum? There's a lot of things on the table. It’s going to come before city council’s economic development committee later this spring, but an aquarium for Charlotte might be in the mix.
Terry: Finally, a Charlotte entrepreneur has developed an app that helps users avoid sketchy restrooms. How does it work?
Fahey: This is a great piece, I thought, from the Charlotte Observer. It's called Doody Calls. Basically, it's a place where different people in Charlotte can go in and review their bathroom experience in public restrooms across Charlotte. What I love is that there are some very vicious 1-star ratings, including a Bojangles outside of uptown, and then the McDonald's in South Park, on the other hand, is almost a 5-star rating. So it's turning into a Charlotte version of Game of Thrones in a way.
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