And… not to overshadow great food additions, but federal regulators gave a thumb’s up for replacing RDU’s main runway -and the new one will be longer than expected!
https://www.rdu.com/faa-authorizes-10639-foot-length-for-future-runway/
RDU originally planned to replace its 10,000 ft-long, deteriorating main runway with a new one that’s 1500 ft longer so that planes from farther away with more people/cargo can come to our area. However, as the N&O noted, they had to compromise and shrink it back to 10k ft when the pandemic damaged their finances so that they could keep other projects (like a consolidated rental car facility in walking distance) alive. So this update is great news that our new runway could be slightly longer, thanks to lobbying by the RTA, RTP, regional governments, and Alaska Airlines for some reason.