That would be our annual assessment of air service development from CLT to the western United States. US Airways has for many years offered daily nonstops to seven destinations in the western and mountain time zones: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, and Las Vegas.

In addition, the airline offers summer-seasonal service — traditionally June 1 to the day after Labor Day — to Portland, OR, and Sacramento, CA. Portland service was first offered in 2007 while Sacramento started a year later. And let’s be realistic: US Airways is unlikely to add additional service to more places out west until the larger PDX and SMF markets do well enough to justify a nonstop for more than just three months out of the year.

The first positive signs came last year, when US Airways extended the season for the routes. Portland operated daily through the end of September, and then four days a week through November 4. Sacramento was also at one point listed as being continued through early November at reduced frequency, but that seems not to have happened.

The news this year is mixed. (All schedules of course subject to change based upon the economy and fuel prices.) Portland starts earlier this year — May 3rd, easily the earliest its ever started — and continues daily through the end of October before ending. Sacramento, however, begins on June 2 and ends on August 15. Not exactly progress on that front.

In some sense, the distinction between PDX and SMF doesn’t come as a surprise if you look at 3rd quarter 2010 air transportation figures, which show daily O&D (origination and destination, so not connecting) passengers between cities in the U.S. along with average fares:

Destination Code Miles Value Pax/Day Avg Fare
Portland, OR PDX 2,282 $60,545 230.5 $262.62
Sacramento, CA SMF 2,244 $40,303 154.0 $261.67
Salt Lake City, UT SLC 1,727 $38,681 168.9 $229.00
Orange County, CA SNA 2,099 $33,024 128.4 $257.26
Ontario, CA ONT 2,079 $21,738 91.9 $236.67
San Jose, CA SJC 2,275 $20,644 76.4 $270.17
Albuquerque, NM ABQ 1,449 $16,316 84.7 $190.70

Value is what people spent on average per day flying between Charlotte and the city in question. It’s simple the next two columns multiplied together — the number of people flying between the cities and the average one-way air fare.

Salt Lake City remains a possibility and is Charlotte’s largest unserved market. It’s also a Delta hub, and Delta has flown CLT-SLC nonstop in the past, which complicates things. Orange County is capacity (slot) restricted and has a short runway, so that’s not happening. Ontario and San Jose face the same issue: whether there are a sufficient quantity of people willing to pay enough to fly to CLT nonstop (or connect in CLT to someplace else) to justify a flight. So far, US Airways thinks the answer is “no”, and is adding capacity to the main airports in those areas (LAX and SFO respectively) instead.

Update: Here are how many flights a day Delta is offering from Atlanta to various second-tier western destinations: Portland 4; Sacramento 2, San Jose 1, Ontario 1 going to 2 in July, Albuquerque 3, Tuscon 2.