…and the Charlotte Chamber was, undoubtedly, disappointed. Doug Parker, CEO of US Airways, said while the company’s two nonstop flights day from CLT — Frankfurt and London — were “doing OK. Not great, but OK”, additional flights to Europe were unlikely. Lufthansa also flies nonstop from Charlotte to Munich (daily in spring and summer, 3 weekly in winter).

Parker’s comments were especially disappointing considering US Airways officials were more upbeating last year about the possibility.

So why no additional overseas flights to Charlotte? Parker described it as Charlotte not being large enough, but it’s more complicated than that. The next most obvious European destination would be Paris. It’s been tried before — and failed. And it would be a challenge to make work now:

• Long-distance flights are very dependant upon non-tourist demand — business travelers, people visiting friends and family, the types of people that have to travel even if the fares are more expensive. And exactly that is the problem. While there a lot of German-owned (162 firms in 2007 per the Chambers figures) and British-owned (108) firms located in Charlotte region, there’s relatively little French investment in the region. Indeed, there are almost as many Swiss-owned companies in the Charlotte region (41) as there are French (44).

• Then there’s the issue of alliance structure. The basic idea is that airlines have formed alliances to more efficiently funnel passengers to their destinations. US Airways is in the Star Alliance with, among others, Lufthansa. As a result, it wants to route people so they will connect to destinations in Europe at Lufthansa’s hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.

Air France’s alliance partners include Delta Air Lines. They are working to have travelers to Europe that connect do so in, gasp, Paris. Or on this side of the pond, at Delta’s hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, or NYC.

• U.S. airlines, including US Airways, are increasingly using their 757s over the Atlantic. The big narrow-body has the range to get to some points in Europe. It also offers a relatively small number of seats compared to the larger widebody types and is idea for serving secondary markets. Sounds like a good match for Charlotte. It would be, except the extra couple hundred miles flying up the East Coast from CLT limits how far into Europe a 757 could get from Charlotte (the real world constraint is on the way back from Europe, because of the winds).

CLT to Paris or Madrid is 300 nautical miles longer than any 757 flight US Airways is currently doing. Even CLT-Manchester, England is about 100 miles longer but might be right at the limits of what is feasible — subject to adequate demand.

Looks like the Chamber has got to do some recruiting if they want more transatlantic flights from CLT…