CHARLOTTE — Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the sixth busiest airport in the world. Millions of passengers take off and land each year in Charlotte. Pilot Hickory Ham, the Charlotte vice chair for the Allied Pilots Association, says all that traffic is a good thing.
“Any kind of opportunity to get growth and more flights here is good for us,” he said. “It is good for American Airlines and good for the city of Charlotte.”
With that growth, he and air traffic controller Anthony Schifano, the president of the Charlotte National Air Traffic Controllers Association, says Charlotte’s airport needs to invest in safety.
“Any time that you have an opportunity to improve safety, in our opinion, you should be doing so,” he said.
One of the safety measures currently in place at Charlotte Douglas is called Runway Status Lights. They are on most of the airport’s runways. Schifano says they are simple, but effective.
“Runway Status Lights are a visual cue to pilots when there’s something else that’s on the runway,” he said.
Activated red lights signal a plane is coming.
“When the airport status lights are activated, they are telling the person sitting on the runway it is unsafe to enter the runway,” Schifano said. “The lights go off whenever it is safe. At approximately half-mile final they illuminate showing it is not safe to enter and as the aircraft passes the runway status lights you can see it is clear to enter the runway.”
It may seem simple. We are all taught red means stop. But Ham says these lights can prevent catastrophes.
“On a clear, blue day, maybe this seems redundant but when you are in bad weather and it is super foggy there are times air traffic control can’t even see out of the tower,” he said. “It is just another way for safety, and it is peace of mind to know it is unsafe to enter the runway.”
Charlotte airport officials are currently building a new runway, which will be 10,000 feet long by 150 feet wide. It’s a more than $1 billion dollar project. But as it stands now, the runway will not be outfitted with those safety lights.
An April 2024 letter from the airport’s chief infrastructure officer puts the blame on financial reasons.
“Our obligation to be financially sustainable does not position us to support an unrequired program,” Jack Christie said in the letter.
Channel 9 followed up with the airport, and a spokesperson said the FAA is no longer supporting this technology.
An FAA spokesperson said that is not the case and pointed out Memphis is partnering with Fedex to put the lights in place. A spokesperson for FAA says they want to expand access to the lights when more funding is available.
Runway Status Light systems are in place at 20 airports in the US.
Christie’s letter says end-around taxiways will mitigate the risk of runway incursions. Those are taxiways that encircle the runway allowing planes not to cross.
But Schifano says that’s not a solution.
“That doesn’t mean that every aircraft can use those end-around taxiways,” he said.
While the airport has no plans for putting these lights in place on the new runway for now Schifano and Ham hope they will find the funding and green light them in the future.
“We have to have the safety systems in place to make sure that, especially considering how close the runways are together, that we are able to do our jobs and do our jobs safely,” Schifano said.
VIDEO: Transportation secretary speaks about runway safety at Charlotte airport
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