I’m going to Glasgow for a conference this October, too, and I also realized it’s not super expensive to go there.
Though we can probably do better.
I’ve been comparing several options, and it dawned on me that a detour to visit some friends cuts my costs in half.
Option 1 - $1200ish: fly to/from RDU-Heathrow and Heathrow-Glasgow
Option 2 - $600ish: fly RDU-Boston, crash at a friend’s for a night, then go BOS-LHR and LHR- BOS-RDU (going between London-Euston and Glasgow by train for $80ish roundtrip)
I really love the number of direct flights we have nowadays, but I hope we do better soon by having more competition.
Side note: for those of y’all like me who are frequent flyers for airlines that, unfortunately, only codeshare with the baggage-destroying, doctor-assaulting United Airlines, they’re opening a new lounge soon! …and it’ll depend on the photos they release tomorrow, but I’ll admit it: the barbecue thing sounds pretty cool.
About that runway, though...
If it’s going to support cross-continental or transatlantic flights, though, I think it still needs to be extended. That runway (5R/23L) is only 7,500 feet, so it’s not exactly ideal for larger planes needing more space to acc/decelerate.
...and the Airport operations too, while that's still in the back of our minds.
I’ve flown through Terminal 1 several times (both before and after the rebuild). When you walk anywhere inside it, you can see and feel how that renovation was done with a fraction of Terminal 2’s budget. (see @Alan and @CanesFan’s posts for more details)
Not that that’s a bad thing, though; it looks like Terminal 1 will turn into the homes for RDU’s ultra-low-cost carriers by 2020, so that’s probably more appropriate anyways.
RDU is operated by a public-ish entity that partly gets input from the City of Raleigh, though. So not only does it have secondhand impact on DTR, it also responds to inputs and pressure from the city and county too.
Hell, they even have webpages showing board meeting minutes, just like city halls.
Can we talk about airport ACCESS, too???
It’s always confused me how the airport always existed as a sort of mysterious, isolated, floating existence separate from every other transit mode in Raleigh. I wonder when we’ll have more frequent non-driving alternatives (like even more frequent than the every-30-min GoTriangle 100 buses we have now, which is apparently already an improvement??) to go to/from the airport to other places in the area and beyond…
By the way, reminder: we’ve already extensively discussed rail extensions to RDU, and why it’s a bad idea.
Rail-based transfers between RDU and Charlotte-Douglas could also be nice, too? Codeshare “flights” with trains are apparently a real thing.