Charlotte Douglas Airport is open Friday, and plans to stay open all weekend, even as the remnants of Hurricane Florence brush past Charlotte.
The airport was nearly empty Friday morning, as thousands of passengers had already changed their flight schedules. American Airlines, Charlotte’s dominant carrier, said its planes were 27 percent full Friday. They would usually be about 90 percent full.
As of now, American is still running its full schedule - except for flights to the cities near the storm, like New Bern and Wilmington, says American spokesperson Crystal Byrd.
"As of this morning, for both our mainline and regional operations we have cancelled a little under 100 flights, and those are to the destinations of those coastal cities in which their airports are currently closed,” Byrd said.
Jack Christine, the airport's deputy director of aviation, said the airport may be forced to use its crosswind runway if sustained winds reach 34 mph.
CLT usually uses three parallel runways. Switching to the single crosswind runway would cause delays.
"If we do have high winds here and we get into a situation where we have crosswinds on the field we do have a crosswind runway," Byrd said. "But it is a single runway, so that will have impacts for us if we get to that point. Right now we are on the edge as far as the amount of wind that we will have that will warrant that condition.”
The airport said all passengers should check with their airline before coming to the airport.