Over the past few years, Charlotte has gained a significant amount of flights as US Airways transformed itself from a carrier with major operations at eight airports (Charlotte, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington Reagan National, Boston, New York LaGuardia, Phoenix, Las Vegas)) to an airline with 99 percent of its service from only four places (Charlotte, Philadelphia, Reagan National, Phoenix). These service increases at CLT happened even as the airline reduced its overall flying.

The window of US Airways growth in Charlotte to destinations in the U.S. and Canada pretty much closed over the weekend, when the airline loaded the flight additions at Washington Reagan National (DCA) in the final portion of its slot swap with Delta Air Lines. From now on, there is no more shifting to do, the airline has achieved its goal of becoming a four-hub carrier. Thus what you see is essentially the new baseline of service for the carrier. It is what it is, and at least domestically, there’s no reason to expect many changes, whether here in Charlotte or any place else.

Which is to say that if you were hoping that the airline might add a nonstop to someplace like Tulsa, OK, Bloomington, IL, or Ft. Wayne, IN to make it a bit easier to visit the company headquarters and/or your sister, is probably not happening any time soon. To add routes requires aircraft, and they aren’t really adding planes except for maybe a couple of widebodies next year and in 2014 (which could allow a small amount of additional international flying).

Slot swap round two

Over the weekend, US Airways loaded flights from Reagan National to Augusta, GA, Fayetteville, Arkansas, Minneapolis, Montreal, and Toronto. The complete list of service that US airways is adding from DCA as a result of its slot swap deal with Delta, sorted by whether the city in question was on the original list of places to be added from DCA when the slot swap was first proposed back in the summer of 2009. (CRJ = Canadair Regional Jet, a type of 50-seat regional jet; E75 = Embraer 175 large regional seats 80 with a first-class section; E70 = Embraer 170 large regional seats 69 with a first-class section.):

On the original list and added: Birmingham (3 x CRJ), Cincinnati (3 x CRJ), Des Moines (2 x E70), Islip (2 x CRJ), Little Rock (2 x E70), Montreal (3 x CRJ), Ottawa (3 x CRJ), Pensacola (2 x CRJ), Savannah (1 x CRJ), Tallahassee (1 x CRJ)

Not on the original list but added: Agusta, GA (1 x CRJ), Bangor, ME (2 x CRJ), Fayetteville, NC (1 x CRJ); Fayetteville, AR (1 x CRJ); Ft. Walton Beach, FL (2 x CRJ); Jacksonville, NC (1 x CRJ); Memphis (3 x CRJ), Minneapolis (2 x E75, 1 x E70), Omaha (1 x E70), Toronto (4 x CRJ)

On the original list but not getting flights: Grand Rapids, MI, Ithica, NY, Madison, WI, Miami, Myrtle Beach

Some observations on the slot swap routes:

1. US Airways choose not to enter any new markets despite the addition of 42 highly desirable DCA slots. This comes despite Grand Rapids and Madison being on their original list of destinations they planned to add. The closest US Airways came was adding flights to Omaha and Des Moines to Reagan National — and Charlotte. Omaha and Des Moines were unusual cases in that they had US Airways service to Phoenix but not to anywhere to the east. So a long-expected connecting the dots move. They can’t do more of this though, as there aren’t any other places in the Central Time Zone that gets service only to Phoenix.

2. Oh Canada! Nearly a quarter of the flights added at DCA are to Canada. This is not a surprise; one of the few places US Airways has added flights to in recent years is Canada. (Charlotte got service to Montreal in 2008 and Ottawa in 2010).

3. Not much was added to the Northeast, just Bangor and Islip but a lot of additions to the Southeast, many of which are places that don’t have service to Philly.

4. In its original 2009 press release, US Airways stated that:

Following full implementation of the new schedule, the airline anticipates its passenger enplanements at DCA will increase by 30 to 35 percent as a result of the new flights and use of larger aircraft.

The larger aircraft part hasn’t really happened nor was there an increase in flights to existing markets. Which suggests that US Airways has changed its focus a bit, and is now concentrating more now on traffic going to/from Washington, DC and less on using DCA as a connecting point than what was envisioned when the deal was first proposed back in 2009. If DCA isn’t going to pick up the load as a connecting point to the Northeast, it’s possible that more of that function could in time shift to CLT — but only if/when US Airways starts adding capacity (which isn’t really currently planned).

5. Interesting that US Airways is adding flights to three Delta hubs (Memphis, Minneapolis, and Cincinnati) but is ignoring American Airlines despite American currently being in Chapter 11. US Airways is not adding DCA-Miami flights, though their original press release said they would, and is actually reducing service on DCA-Dallas/Ft. Worth to once daily (!). Memphis and to a lesser degree Cincinnati are dying hubs but it’s still a very strange use of a scarce resources by US Airways.

Bonus observation: Jerry Orr talks about adding a lot more gates out at the airport. Would love to see him lay out an actual business case for that.