RDUairport

I love the look and activity of Charlotte today. Its really wonderful. This project would really being an amazing add to the city.

So there isn't a major tenant yet? Wow I guess that is a bit risky. I guess I just figured there was one already. Could the design be changed much once construction actually starts?

All of this sounds great. I don't know too much about NCRR but its great that steps are being taken to get new service started. How real is the possibility of getting service to wilmington and when could we look for this to happen?

Great to hear! I can't wait to start seeing progress there. It will really be nice to see this one coming up out of the ground. And of course another crane!

SFO (San Fran.) is going to be coming online its just a matter of time. There is a good chance that RDU will pick up service from Virgin America within the next half a year and this would result in service to SFO. My source is pretty reliable, however this was still spectulation so don't take it as fact quite yet. FRA I still don't see for another 5 or 6 years. If it came any sooner than that I would expect that it would be on a 737 BBJ that had the extra fuel tank install for the longer transatlantic range. Houston used to have such a flight with Lufthansa out to FRA but I'm not sure if they still do or not. I just don't see any airlines putting a widebody on this route right now. Hopefully with the opening of Terminal 2 (C right now) this all may change. SAN (san deigo) and SEA (seattle) are both a hopeful dream but no one is going to jump on these routes for probably 4 or 5 years. I don't see a big enough demand to warrant a non-stop from RDU. However I know RDUAA (airport authority) will be working towards getting them so good luck to them and RDU. Overall I'm very excitied about this year at RDU. The expansion here is amazing and I look forward to seeing more soon.

I believe Southwest is actually increasing to two flights a day to Las Vegas. So with the dropped LAS by USAirways we'll still have two flights.

LAS is las vegas and SLC is salt lake city.

Thanks for the correction ERJ I got mixed up with BDL.

Delta has recently applied to DOT to fly RDU to Cancun. This doesn't mean it will happen but its in the pipeline. It would operate on Saturdays only using a Boeing 738. So maybe we'll see a Mexico flight soon enough. Time will tell.

I love going to walmart to play around and sometimes buy stuff haha but I'm with ya'll if they brought their HQ here I'd have to find me a new home somewhere else in the south.

To add to my earlier statment and partly correct myself; Walmart actually does have a big part in the route also. Walmart requested the flight which will allow passengers coming from XNA a way to connect to New York, Newark, N.J., Hartford, Conn. and Columbus, Ohio. Around 70-80% of the passengers will be connecting passengers. This isn't a movement to make RDU into a hub again but rather a way for AA to do more with less. AA is streching its regional jet out and these connections through RDU allow more routes without necessarily more planes. But again Walmart deserves the thanks this time.

Both XNA and RDU are considered to be focus cities for AA/AE. XNA also has maintanence facilities for American Eagle which works well for rotating planes through from RDU. I wouldn't expect to see any other expansions from American to smaller markets such as this one. I know you may argue that American has done a lot of smaller expansion lately out of RDU but if not for ExpressJet, that would not be the case. Don't mean to sound so negative because this news really excites me, so dont get the wrong picture. I hope this route works for American. It'll be flown once daily on an EMB-135.

Well RDUAA did change their plans from rebuilding Terminal A to rebuilding Terminal C; I'll give you that one, but I don't see them changing plans with what they have in mind for Terminal A now. As both ERJ170 and I both do, you can email the RDUAA and they do a good job feeling you in on any questions you may have. You can even sit in on their meetings, as they are public. Based on the information coming from RDUAA as of right now it will be renovated. Whether you agree or disagree RDU needs and will need another terminal other than Terminal C and that is Terminal A. This is why it won't be demolished. I too see the faults that Terminal A has, however I don't think they are worth demolishing the thing and then building a second 500 million dollar terminal in its place. This would send a lot of people in an uproar about how the airport authority is spending too much money (where's it coming from war), so this is the best option for the time being as I see it. Just my own opinion, (hope I didn't come off sounding too aggressive as I respect everyone own opinion).

Yeah, ERJ170 pretty much sumed it up well. RDUAA does a very good job of working for the best it can offer with the money they can get, so I have no worries about the renovations that lay ahead for Terminal A. It may still be a blue box, but when they're done the part that counts will be done right. By the way ERJ170 I'm guessing you go by the same name on A.net's forum?

Terminal C once completed will actually be remaned Terminal 2 and Terminal A will become Terminal 1. Terminal A will not be demolished as they will begin a slow process of renovating it. Renovations will start in baggage claim and then move to the security lines to make the process more efficent and less time consuming. Also the announcement for American flight 173/174 (RDU to London) is very good for RDU. If RDU had not been part of the announcement the flight would have probably been put on the chopping board, so this shows American's committment to the flight.

Yea it is definitely nice to see so many 757s back on the schedule. I've be sad with so few from Delta for the last few years. At the peak before 9/11 RDU had 11 scheduled each day... quite amazing to me at least. I'm really excitied about how many more seat are now avaiable to passengers. On a different note last year we actually had a small decrease in cargo operations. I would have thought it would have been a small increase but I guess not... I'm a little concerned that once GSO's hub opens in 2009 wheather or not RDU will still see its A300s and A310s. If all trucks can be routed from the RDU trucking hub to the GSO air hub it will definitely impact cargo service out of RDU for Fedex. Lets hope for the best.

Yea Air France can do this because the don't clean the outside of there planes.. EVER!! haha Its always fun to look at pictures of Air France because unless it just came from the factory chances are it looks gray rather than white.. (Please no flaming here its just a friendly joke) As for Virgin America I think they'll be more like a jetblue situtation for RDU. It'll be a few years before we see them if they do decide to come to RDU. I could be wrong however I just don't see Virgin America starting up the first route between RDU and the bay area. If they do I'll be more than happy to eat my words. I'd expect Virgin America to hit all the big markets first concentrating in the three major areas of the country: west coast, new england, and florida, along with your few in the middle.

The no Mondays and Friday flights probably was not in affect in Jan. because its been more recently for this, however I wonder if there was any reason unforesen that contributed to your flight being cut that night... I find it hard to see an airline checking passengers in for a flight that isn't scheduled to fly that day.. (In no way am I arguing against your story at all) but maybe it was due to equipment problem or lack of equipment that day. Either way if they checked you in for a flight that was not scheduled to run that day I would call customer service with Delta and explain the deal. You might be able to get some compensation for your trouble. If thats the case its a lack of consideration for the passenger, which Delta can not really afford right now.. I wonder where the break down was in the communication/information that night..

The airlines will change the schedules around a little bit from summer to winter as expected. Up till March 1st the RDU-LAX flight did not fly on Mondays and Saturdays. Effective as of March 2nd the flight is back to the regular schedule where it does not fly on Saturdays only. So Right now its Sunday through Friday as it started. The flight is still "ok", no worries. RDUs need for west coast nonstop destinations will only increase from here on out. These routes should have a secure future.

Eastern fell through and their MIA hub was up for grabs and its was a better location for AA's operations into the Carribean and South American than RDU. RDU was made to be a north/south hub connecting traffic up and down the eastern seaboard and to a lesser extent the Carribean, however when AA opened up their hub at MIA their was no longer the strong need for RDU as planes could bypass RDU straight to florida. You will not see a hub survive at RDU because the competition from other airlines is too high. Having the big three low cost carriers at RDU pretty much ends that argument. Continental Airlines had a regional airline called Continental Lite which had a "hub" at GSO but did not work out at all and closed as well.

Sorta to piggyback off what captialcity said hubs are awesome ... ( three DC-10s departing at the same time from RDU back in the AA hub day...) but I don't except to ever see a working hub system at RDU again. RDU is a focus city for AA which is why they still have such a large operation (67 flights a day). I really enjoy having a focus city because AA will keep a good amount of flights and bring in larger planes i.e. the 777 for Gatwick. The fact that we don't have a full scale hub system at RDU has allowed prices to drop to a nice amount and also allows other airlines to build up. Overall, I too miss the hub days of RDU but I enjoy being an AA focus city while having all the other airlines as well and is probably one of the best situtation we could have.

LAX and DEN are here to stay. There are too many peope that fly these routes and since both are/will be flown with the correct size equipment I wouldn't count on either one of these fly being dropped. SFO will be on the way in the future, if not this year I would think next year. I think SFO will be chosen over SJC.

Just when you think we've seen all the new markets another one comes up. Today Midwest Airlines announced that they will be flying to RDU again. This is their 3rd time with service to RDU. Midwest will fly to Milwaukee three times a day using CRJs. I couldn't be more happy for RDU right now... well unless we got another scheduled heavy to come in . Link: Midwest announces service to RDU from Milwaukee

I'm very happy with the response from the airlines and the additional flights; however, 11.5 million passengers is a bit too much in my own opinion. I do think we'll be somewhere around the 10 million mark give or take a few hundred thousand. Either way its still great news. If everything keeps going smoothly and nothing effects the airline business I think we might see another good size increase next year when the north concourse opens up for terminal C (just a hunch, no credibility to that at all).

I know there is the big argument of why they rebuilt terminal C before looking towards terminal A, but it would be extremely difficult to work in 9 airlines along with 15 regionals to terminal C for a couple of years to make way for a new terminal A. Rebuilding terminal C and making it actually able to handle a 98% O&D market will better RDU. Yes I know terminal A is nobody's favorite but it would have cost a lost more in money to relocate airlines to a temporary terminal or in passenger's patiences to deal with all operations out of terminal C (scary thought....). terminal A's time will come, just not quite yet. The RDUAA definitely do everything they can to better RDU and I don't think they'll let us down with the renovation plans for terminal A. Just my two cents.