Twice daily flights from Charlotte to Cedar Rapids, IA (CID) start on November 4th. This is the latest example of one of the major upsides from the American Airlines/US Airways merger.
US Airways, with hubs in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Washington, DC, didn’t serve second-tier cities in the Midwest or in Oklahoma. Adding such destinations, even if they might ultimately prove profitable over the long term, was always going to be expensive and risky. American Airlines, with hubs in Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth, of course, already flew to such cities, much lowering the bar to adding flights to Charlotte post merger. Cedar Rapids will be the eighth such city added from Charlotte since July 2014; the others are Evansville, IN, Ft. Wayne, IN, Grand Rapids, MI, Madison, WI, Oklahoma City, OK, Springfield, MO, and Tulsa, OK. (US Airways finally added flights to Des Moines, IA and Omaha, NE in 2011; both were cities that US Airways also served from Phoenix.)
