Would love for 6 or 7 to happen first though.
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Love the scenes and experiences in number 6. Good times on those streets.
I would have added a Norwegian Air route of some kind to this list, and fairly high up, prior to COVID. Obviously they have cut their US routes entirely now, but maybe Norse will fill that void as they expand over time.
Would be fantastic to have a low cost airline with direct flights to Europe.
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We have Icelandair… which is a lower-cost airline that flies to Europe nonstop
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This isn’t related to the current conversation, but here’s the link showing the progress of all of the expansion projects. It shows the percentage of completion for each project and has links with pictures, showing the work being done:
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Great site. After watching that rental car video I was tired. That is a haul if you have bags. Reminds me of Providence TF Green, takes forever to get to RCC. But I like the consolidation of these centers.
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A new, Alaska-based startup airline is trying to replicate Icelandair’s business model for transpacific flights between the US and Asia!
This new airline formed in 2020 from a crumbling regional airline, and is working on getting federal regulatory approval to fly to Japan and Korea. They wanted to get that sorted out this year, but a need to avoid Russian airspace due to the war in Ukraine plus Japan’s practical ban on tourists (which didn’t show signs of budging until last week means this may take longer.
In the meantime, Northern Pacific is planning on flights to Mexico, and may codeshare with other airlines so that there are transpacific flights with NPA numbers by Q2 2023. Mexico may sound a strange place for an Alaska-based transpacific airline -until you realize they have a maintenance base in Ontario, CA. This means NPA needs to fly planes near Los Angeles anyways, so this lets them make easy money in the meantime.
The new airline already has their hands on used Boeing 757 aircraft -some that they own, others that are wet leased (read: they’ll borrow planes and crew from another airline, but Icelandair maintains their titles, maintenance responsibilities etc.)- to fly from subarctic North America to eastern Asia through Anchorage, AK. The startup’s CEO noted that they already have pilots and flight attendants hired, and aims to start flights later this calendar year.
This new airline may take a while to launch successful flights to Asia (if they succeed at all). But if they do succeed, it could be one way for RDU to get flights to Asia!
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Iceland to RDU flight today is completely full. 
Interesting enough they refer to the destination as “Raleigh” but the next line is for “Minneapolis St Paul” 
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The N&O put up an article the other day about how RDU met with local Indian community members and businesses (incl. Wake County’s Jay Chaudhuri, who’s apparently the first-ever Indian-American member of North Carolina’s GA!?) to talk about getting direct flights to India -and why that’s so difficult and such a low priority (with lessons on why it may take a while for us to get flights to Asia, as well).
Case in point: just having a couple of hundred people fly a given route is NOT enough to make the case for a new international flight -at least, without massive subsidies and/or guarantees of regular business-based bookings.
Spoiler alert: it’s not.
This is why, as it turns out, only JFK, Newark, Chicago, and Washington-Dulles have direct flights to India; not even Atlanta, Charlotte, or Miami have them, despite having sizable Indian populations as well.
I think we’ve mentioned it before on here, but massive subsidies from the airport and the private sector were needed for some of our other international flights (north of $1 million, each, from RDU via subsidies as well as from local businesses for the Paris flight, which cost Delta over $80M-$90M when they started it). Landgluth estimated that cost to be over $150M for a direct flight to India in the article (and that number may be similar for Japan/China/Korea too…).
While that’s pretty cost-prohibitive in the near term, RDU leaders had interim solutions that could still be helpful. This might make you think about Icelandair’s business model, or my post from before:
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Delta upgrading the RDU to Paris route with a slightly bigger plane and daily service.
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I’ve managed to kinda get a good estimate. I know someone over in customs over there and he said just about every flight has been near full, if not full- with the exception of yesterday which had 20 empty seats on the inbound - meaning 206 people were on the flight. Atlanta is now served on the 767-300 once daily and is doing well. Todays inbound from ATL had three empty seats last I checked and the outbound had 5.
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Note, this aircraft has been operated on the 226-seat aircraft until this week. It now operates on the 211-seat 76K configuration, which features the all-new upper class products as well as modifications in economy
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When i took it this summer, it was almost full, i would say no more than 8-10 empty seats.
Pre-pandemic it was 13 RT flights daily between ATL and RDU on DL, many on larger aircraft.
DL realizes what it has in this market.
Not exactly. In peak summer months, they typically operated the 757 up to 6x daily and all other flights during the year were on 717 & 737-900ER aircraft. Now, nearly all flights have been upgraded to a321, with the exception of the 767 service and the summer months which most recently saw 5-6x daily 757 service
We need one badly since this is not City Of Raleigh nothing can stop us from getting a hub.
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will establish a base at Raleigh/Durham (RDU) and add six new routes: - Fort Lauderdale (FLL) - Fort Myers (RSW) - Orlando (MCO) - Sarasota (SRQ) - Tampa (TPA) - West Palm Beach (PBI)
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Oh excellent, I have family in Tampa and Connecticut. If the price is right, I’ll check them out.
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Base for us is good of course. Routes are not earth shattering but with some carriers pulling their FL routes, this probably fills a need. I hope they expand quickly with more routes.
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