Agreed would want that commuter train over the bus. But a well branded bus that directly takes you to the airport and back to downtown would be sweet.
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The cruise industry already has some semblance of blended services at the major ports. Usually one can check in and check bags at the port, but I am not sure if that service includes security. I highly doubt that it does.
The real key here is that having the bus run by the airline, the added assurance that they know who is on the bus and where they are going is invaluable to a rider. The added bonus of not having to deal with security at the airport is just icing on the cake.
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Yes, I want to pay for a Ferrari and have delivered a tricycle. F off.
Is a plane really a Ferrari if you’re not flying first class? I get more legroom on pretty much any bus than I do flying coach.
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It’s all about distance and speed for me. I don’t want to dragged around on a bus by airlines that have a hard time getting me and my bag in the same place. Knowing them they will divert you to a bus and screw you on your air carriage. They are all horrible.
I think people are missing 2 huge benefits: the single ticket benefit and going through security at a small airport. If anything happens with the bus ride: traffic, accident, weather, etc., it’s the airlines responsibility to rebook. When making a longer drive, It takes a level of worry/stress rather than driving yourself. And going through security at an ABE-like airport is extremely easy and peaceful. You can easily arrive 45 minutes before departure if you wanted.
And of course, these routes and United’s bus segments to EWR are to major metros. I’ve made the drive from The Lehigh Valley to Philly a lot, and it’s not a pleasant drive, moreso with the location of PHL in the city and especially in the winter. It’s not like driving from Fayetteville or Greensboro to RDU.
It makes sense up there for the cities that have them. It doesn’t make too much sense here. Though I’m not sure why people are getting upset about this, it’s not like they are downgrading the service. There hasn’t been any service between these airports in a long time.
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I’m against busing to smaller suburbs Raleigh-Durham International Airport needs to be a Hub again, I don’t care if it’s enjoyable nor do I care if NIMBYs care about airplane noise. Spirit, JetBlue, Delta Air could all use Terminal 1 as a hub. If that happens then talk to me about putting bus go take people down to Suburbs like Wilson. That also attract Fortune 500 companies here and An MLB team here because they’ll buy more corporate boxes which means money. The mayor should make a proposal or incentive to those airline companies the CEO needs to do something about this. I’m want to settle for more.
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/s : characters FRFR, IYKYK
RDU going local on some needed food / cafe options :
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It’s a great idea!!!
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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.
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Also, as I was looking up sources for that post, I ran into the RDU Airport Authority’s Dropbox folder with full, official, finalized copies of the Vision 2040 plan. I briefly skimmed through it (the PDF is nearly 1,900 pages long so of course I only skimmed through parts of it), and realized the airport master plan has some public transit-friendly, space-efficient designs hidden in the details.
Here’s the splashiest example:
And here’s that figure, where the hypothetical automated people mover alignment is the dashed orange line!
This does NOT mean that RDU will have direct people-mover/light rail service. It just means that RDU, as of 2017, has carved out an option so that, if anyone ever builds something like that, this plan won’t get in the way.
What’s more realistic and better-defined is better bus service to the airport -and starting in its second chapter, this report acknowledges that too. It mentions how BRT (or at least, frequent bus) service to the airport could be possible in the future, and aims to rely on those as parking becomes more scarce around the airport in the future. To make non-driving airport trips more attractive, they proposed “Ground Transportation Centers” in front of each terminal so that buses/BRT, hotel shuttles etc. have spaces of their own.
Here’s where those buses and shuttles could run (blue arrows) as well as car traffic (green with white, dashed lines) based on two maps of the center of the airport I stitched together.
I doubt that engineering and design details (e.g. would Terminal 1 bus passengers cross the road on foot, or use the existing semi-underground passageway?) will be figured out before these specific projects start getting developed. But the one clear thing here is that, with the location of the consolidated rental car (CONRAC) facility in the right side of the above map, bus riders would get to take an exclusive shortcut to move between terminals faster than cars!
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That seems like a very long time to add 900ft of runway.
It’s actually an entirely new runway a few hundred feet away from the current one. The current one will be used as a taxiway. By doing this it gives them room to expand terminal 2 out into the tarmac area.
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Ah okay thanks for clarifying.
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Re: Alaska - big planes to Sea-Tac maybe? Would be a great tech worker shuttle route.
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The new, longer runway would allow for heavier planes with more passengers and cargo, sure, but it’s hard to imagine Alaska Airlines to want bigger planes. Their whole business model is based on almost exclusively using Boeing 737 aircraft -and I can’t see them changing that strategy since they’ve been retiring some Airbus planes and replacing/expanding their fleet with 105 new next-gen Boeing 737 planes since 2020.
Thanks for clarifying that! I realized I worded some things poorly, so I edited that first post.
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If I remember right, I think during the hotter summer days and while heavily loaded they would sometimes have trouble making to SEA with adequate fuel reserves.
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Alaska looking for an East Coast hub??
Since my mother-in-law moved to Seattle 5 years ago, she always flys back to the east coast (Raleigh and Charleston) direct via Alaska Air. Pretty nifty for her/us, but not sure how much business they actually do on the east coast.
When Boeing expanded to the Charleston area, I’m guessing Alaska Air increased their direct flights between Seattle and Charleston to shuttle Boeing folks back and forth. Not sure why they are in Raleigh too, unless they see us a potential market for all the IT ppls heading to the Triangle from Seattle.
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