CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials are promising improvements for the December holiday travel surge following traffic gridlock for Thanksgiving.
For travel around Christmas, the airport will be adjusting stoplight times at nearby intersections, rerouting portions of the airport shuttle bus operation to help with roadway congestion and providing additional staffing along the Terminal Curb Front.
Jerome Woodard is the Chief Operating Officer for Charlotte Douglas. He said they're expecting more travelers this Christmas, from Dec. 14 until Jan. 3.
“During that period approximately 1.6 million local and connecting passengers are expected to depart from the airport,” he said.
The inbound roadway system is under review by officials for other potential long-term improvements.
The airport is working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Charlotte Department of Transportation on signalization changes, especially along Wilkinson Boulevard and Josh Birmingham Parkway, where there were several backups around Thanksgiving.
"From a communications standpoint, we’re placing additional, we’re placing additional video messaging signage and adjusting existing video messaging signage along Josh Birmingham Parkway," Woodard said. "And really the goal is to communicate approximate roadway travel time from that point to the front of the terminal.”
During the Thanksgiving travel rush, the airport saw passenger traffic exceed the local passenger traffic of 2022 by 18%. That caused vehicular traffic arriving at the airport for arrivals and departures to get stuck in major delays.
Unlike other airports of its size, Charlotte Douglas International Airport has only one passenger terminal. While arrivals and departures are on a split-level roadway, all traffic arriving at the airport accessing the property through a single roadway.
“The Charlotte Department of Transportation [CDOT] is working with the airport to help move traffic safely and efficiently with signal timing adjustments throughout this holiday season," a CDOT spokesperson previously told WCNC Charlotte. The city of Charlotte is the owner of the airport.
Beth Walker, the federal security director for TSA, says another important factor includes making sure you don’t have anything in your carry-on that shouldn’t be there.
"The most common thing that slows down a traveler at a TSA checkpoint is having a prohibited item in their carry-on bag, which is why it’s so important to know before you go," she said.
The airport is also rolling out biometric scanners. Passengers will stand in front of the machine, which will scan their face and match them with traveler information to speed up the process.
Travelers should arrive at the airport at least two hours before a scheduled domestic flight and three hours before a scheduled international flight, officials said. Security wait times and parking spot reservations can be accessed through the airport's website.
Charlotte Douglas is also looking towards the future. Long-term plans include evaluating the airport’s inbound roadway system to account for recent increases in vehicle traffic and future growth.
"It allows us to better manage those volumes, those peaks that we see during spring break, during summer traveling periods, during the Fourth of July, those peaks," he said. "This allows us to provide a relief valve for our roadway system that we didn’t have in other instances.”
Contact Myles Harris at mharris5@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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