OREANDA-NEWS. Charlotte Douglas passenger traffic continued its upward climb, rising 2.5 percent January - May 2014 with 18,068,713 travelers visiting CLT compared to that same timespan in 2013, which had 17,633,015 fliers.  

International passenger traffic had the biggest jump, rising 5.1 percent from 1,146,119 travelers (January - May 2013) to 1,204,116 (January - May 2014). Contributing to that increase, US Airways, who recently merged with American Airlines, launched nonstop flights from CLT in May to Barcelona, Spain; Manchester, England and Lisbon, Portugal.  

Cargo continued a small upward climb, inching up 0.2 percent with 53,792 tons landing at CLT January - May 2014 compared to 53,669 tons during the first five months of 2013.

CLT oversaw 222,990 landings and departures through May of this year versus 231,982 last year at that time. It was a 4 percent decline. US Airways, who operates more than 90 percent of CLT flights, attributed the decrease to using larger aircraft for more flights and decline in flying smaller planes.