American Airlines Charlotte Hub Pushes Through Crisis And Will Get Boeing 777s For Europe Flights

American Airline
AAL
s executives say the Charlotte hub is performing well as the airline industry pushes through the coronavirus crisis.

Meanwhile, with American retiring its Airbus A330ss, Charlotte trans-Atlantic flights will operate with Boeing
BA
777s. Charlotte-Europe service is currently scheduled to restart in July.

Like U.S. commercial aviation generally, Charlotte Douglas International Airport is seeing a gradual increase in traffic.

On Friday, American said it operated 276 Charlotte departures at 47% occupancy as about 14,000 passengers boarded. Before Friday, March 22 was the last time that more than 13,000 passengers boarded American flights in Charlotte.

“One of the bright spots is Charlotte; we’ve been among the least impacted hubs,” Dec Lee, American vice president for Charlotte, said Thursday during a virtual presentation to the City of Charlotte Community Recovery Task Force airport subcommittee.

Times have changed since Feb. 19, when American celebrated reaching the milestone of 700 daily year-round Charlotte departures, making Charlotte the third biggest single airline hub in the world. Currently, average daily American Charlotte departures total 274.

Still, Lee hailed Charlotte’s performance. He noted two factors. First, “We’re a low-cost operation through all the work we’ve done with our partners at (the airport).” Airport operating costs are the lowest for any major U.S. hub.

Secondly, the sharp global decline in passengers means the viability of non-stop flights has diminished, while hubs with connecting flights become more critical. As Lee said, Charlotte “gives us the ability to provide a lot more connections for people who do want to fly at this time.”

One particularly startling statistic is that during the week ending April 29, Charlotte offered the third highest departure capacity in the U.S., trailing only Dallas and Denver. Charlotte had 289,207 seat departures, according to statistics compiled by OAG and cited by Lee. Fourth was Atlanta, with 288,273 seat departures.

Normally, Atlanta is the world’s busiest airport by passengers.

It is one more sign that many normal commercial aviation metrics have been thrown off during the measure has been upended during the pandemic. On Delta’s media earnings call in April, CEO Ed Bastian noted that at one point, the New York market, which has three airports and is normally the world’s biggest, ranked 12^th in the U.S. due to “tremendous demand erosion occurred.”

Bastian said some Mountain states markets were relatively strong, and Salt Lake City held up marginally better than other hubs.

American has said consistently, both pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, that its hubs in Charlotte and Dallas are the places where it wants to grow because it can produce a premium over its average revenue per passenger mile.

On Friday, about 14,000 passengers boarded American’s 276 Charlotte departures, producing a load factor of about 47%. Friday was the first time since March 21 that more than 13,000 passengers boarded in Charlotte. AAmong the passengers were groups of young people headed for Florida, a pilot said.

Meanwhile, American’s retirement of the Airbus A330, one of five aircraft types the carrier is retiring, means that Charlotte is slated to get Boeing 777 flights when American restarts Charlotte-Europe service.

Currently, the carrier plans to restart service from Charlotte to London Heathrow and Munich in July.

With A330s and Boeing 767s gone, a recent bid notice to pilots for September noted, “We will be opening new B737 and B777 bid statuses in Charlotte and a new B787 bid status in Miami to better serve our returning passengers.”