Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408190066
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Long
Changing flights now means strolling through an airy expansion on the southern side of the airport's passenger terminal. Officially opened in May and due for completion next month, its moving walkways and other features are designed to whisk passengers back and forth between the terminal's B and C concourses and their 50 USAir gates with speed and comfort.
USAir flies six times a day from Roanoke to Charlotte, including five jet flights and one commuter plane flight. Those flights involve the movement of about 352 passengers daily, more than 10,000 people a month.
In Charlotte, those passengers encounter an expanded terminal with exposed steel supports and a glass sunroof that provides - not unintentionally - the feel of a European railway station. "We tried to create that Grand Central Station ... that grand space," said Jerry Orr, Charlotte's director of aviation.
In the center of the vast common area between the concourses, a double staircase eventually will provide access to office space on the terminal's second floor. "Every Southern mansion needs a grand staircase," Orr said.
The staircase will lead to a suite of offices on the upper floor that will include those of the Carolina Partnership, a multicounty economic development partnership managed by Mark Heath, who formerly managed the Roanoke Regional Economic Development Partnership.
Behind a gazebo bar between the stairways will be a lounge area equipped with phones and work tables specifically for business travelers.
"Business oriented" is the way Orr described the terminal addition's design. "It was an opportunity to convey to people what Charlotte is all about," he said. "What Charlotte is all about is business."
Charlotte developed historically as a trucking and distribution center in the flat North Carolina piedmont but is now the third-largest banking center in the United States. The airport serves 10.5 million people who live within a 150-mile radius.
The terminal addition - sometimes called the South Terminal although it's attached to and part of a passenger terminal built at the airport in 1982 - was designed by Odell Associates, the same Charlotte architectural firm that designed the new terminal at Roanoke Regional Airport.
Since 1982 two new gate concourses - concourse A for airlines other than USAir and concourse D for international flights - have been built and concourses B and C have been expanded, giving the airport a total of 64 gates. All four of the airport's concourses converge in the 94-by-525-foot addition's common area, making it easier for air travelers to find the location of their connecting flights.
That's important at Charlotte where three of every four arriving passengers, according to Orr, are just passing through on their way to somewhere else.
With passenger volume steadily increasing at Charlotte, making it easier to navigate the airport was an important goal when planning began in 1989 on the $29 million terminal expansion.
Getting passengers from one point to the next as quickly as possible is the airport's top priority - and if that means taking out a fountain or sacrificing something else that contributes only to aesthetics, then the airport will do that, Orr said.
The airport, located just south of Interstate 85 six miles west of downtown Charlotte, is the nation's 10th busiest, USAir's largest hub and the fifth largest airline hub in the nation. Of the airport's 530 daily departures, 360 are by USAir jets and 150 by USAir Express commuter planes.
The advantage to airlines of using the hub concept is that it provides them with more sales opportunities than does scheduling flights from city to city.
An airline hub is like the center of a wheel. Passengers flying from a city on a spoke of the wheel must fly first to the hub before flying to a city located on another spoke. By gathering passengers at a city on the spoke and routing them at the hub to a variety of other cities, airlines may find it economical to provide air service to localities that they otherwise could not afford to serve.
As Orr explained it, instead of flying 10 flights each from one point to another, an airline can fly those flights to a hub and hook up with 10 other flights, giving the airline 100 sales possibilities for each 10 it had under the traditional system.
Having the hub with its hourly service to New York and Atlanta and three daily flights to Los Angeles has been good for business in Charlotte, Orr said. And the addition of international service in 1987 has helped attract 400 international firms to the Charlotte area. When USAir began flights to London there were 15 British firms doing business in Charlotte. Now there are 33, Orr said.
In the late 1970s, local officials sat down with representatives of the airlines and developed a design for a terminal that would meet the airlines' needs. The terminal was built to be easily expandable and it was built within a budget the city could afford, Orr said. The terminal was completed in 1982 and the city has been adding to it ever since.
When the planning was begun, the Charlotte airport was a hub for now-defunct Eastern Airlines and the new terminal was designed as an Eastern hub. In the early 1970s Eastern had 83 percent of the air traffic at the airport with 100 departures a day.
By the early 1980s and the coming of airline deregulation, Piedmont Airlines - which would become part of USAir - had grown beyond its role as a regional carrier and had developed its own hub operation at the airport. The airport became a USAir hub in 1989.
In 1982, the year the first stage of the present terminal opened, 2.8 million passengers boarded planes through its gates. In 1992, that figure had grown to 9 million, and Orr says the airport can comfortably handle twice that number.
By comparison, the Roanoke Regional Airport has 51 scheduled airline departures daily and will board roughly 360,000 passengers this year based on the current pace.
The expanded Charlotte terminal has commercial space managed by the Host Marriott Corp. for a variety of shops and restaurants. But many businesses, including a planned Burger King, a Body Shop store and Tie Rack, are not yet open. Cheers, a cafe-bar that features memorabilia from the popular television program, is open.
Passengers either can walk or ride a tree-lined moving sidewalk between the D and C concourses on one end of the terminal and the A and B concourses on the other. Passengers arriving from Roanoke on USAir usually arrive at Gate C8, and if their flight is to a destination west of Charlotte may have to make a connection in the B concourse.
With an eye toward the future, a space was left between the parking garages in front of the terminal through which a light commuter rail line could pass. The city has been discussing the possibility of running rail service to the terminal, which would pass by the new stadium for the Charlotte Panthers National Football League team and a new civic center on its way into downtown.
The city worked hard to avoid having to build multiple terminals at the airport like some cities have done, Orr said.
Charlotte's business is business, and the larger terminal is designed to reflect the city's international outlook.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***