Flights to Charlotte take off from Moline Wednesday, and so far, so good.
Ashleigh Davis, PR and marketing manager for the Quad Cities International Airport, said bookings filled up quickly. For the first week of service, “things look really strong.”
The North Carolina-bound service via American Airlines was announced in July. With the pilot shortage and smaller airports slowly losing flights, community leaders said at the time they saw the Charlotte addition as a way of helping the region grow.
Flights are available seven days a week, twice a day, at 6:50 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Booking opened Saturday, July 15. Davis said flights are almost entirely booked, which is not unusual considering Christmas is only a few days away. But, that includes flights leaving from and coming to the Quad-Cities.
“What that tells us, long-term, is there is really strong demand to and from our cities, which is fantastic news,” Davis said.
Regional airports are beginning to see a resurgence of “leisure travel,” she said, where passengers fly someplace for business and bring their family along to make a vacation out of it. This trend nearly stopped all together with COVID, but has re-emerged, helping to keep the planes full.
Airlines look at load-factor when determining the success of a route, she said. It’s done by compare the number of seats on the plane to the number of tickets booked. The load factor for Charlotte flights is at about 85% for the next several weeks, Davis said, with that tailing off after the first of the year.
“Typical with post-holiday travel, things slow down in January, but they always do,” she said. “That’s not a popular time to travel but we would expect that to pick back up again in February.”
Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) came in as the world’s 19th busiest airport in 2022, with almost 48 million passengers, according to Airports Council International. In an average day it sees 114,000 arrivals and departures according to the airport’s website.
The last time the Quad-Cities added a flight was 2015 with daily service to Washington D.C.
“This was due in large part to a push from the Pentagon to protect the Arsenal from a base realignment,” Davis said in an email. “The flight lasted less than a year. Charlotte service was secured under vastly different circumstances.”
One of the main reasons for connecting Moline and Charlotte, Davis said, is the latter is a global hub. With so many flights, travelers have more options on where to travel to and an easier path when it’s time to come home.
“This allows people to better connect to flights going up and down the East Coast, the Caribbean, Mexico,” she said. “It helps people get back to their homes faster.”
Brace for the busiest airport season ever, with 24.5 million departing seats predicted from December 21st to 27th. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport leads the pack for busiest airport over the holidays with 1.5 million travelers. Veuer’s Maria Mercedes Galuppo has the story.
ZMG – Veuer
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