https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article279217259.html
Very cool. That is a nice combo of London, Paris, and Frankfurt, as well as Iceland.
I’m a little surprised they are starting with 5 x per week (that seems like a lot), but hopefully they know what they are doing. I think when the Paris flight restarted it was originally announced at 3 x per week, then went up to 4 and is now daily, so hopefully demand is there.
Starting to feel like a real international airport with that many choices in/near Europe plus a couple in Canada and to the south.
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One of these days (after I kick the kids out of the house), I look forward to exploiting all these flights and exploring more of Europe.
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Maybe they’re expecting a lot of connecting flights from nearby or midwestern cities 
. One of my flights on the to RDU from Boston was a connection flight to Paris.
That’s exactly what they expect - Frankfurt has a lot of business of course, but for this route it’s mostly a hub for the rest of Europe + Africa/the Middle East.
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@Nickster I concur. My wife and I plan to make a lot of those kinds of trips, too. We have one left at home and he’s a junior in high school and then he’ll be off to NC state in less than 2 years. The countdown has begun!
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These direct flights from RDU be so dang expensive though.
It’s $1,350 direct to London from RDU. In comparison JFK (New York) to London direct on Virgin or American is $441 round trip.
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One of the reasons I’m surprised these flights are so full consistently, but you pay for the convenience. Shows the buying power that exists in this region.
This is really exciting news.
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You have to applaud the region, businesses, and the airport for making RDU an “International” airport finally. Before Covid, RDU had ONE international airline, Air Canada. Now they have Air Canada, Air France, Bahamasair, Icelandair, Lufthansa. Especially when you consider the 2 new TATL routes are running 6x weekly and 5x weekly respectively.
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RDU would probably already have non-stop to Mexico City if not for Mexico City Airport being at capacity.
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Didn’t they just move the airport in MC, or started too? I know capacity has been a real problem for them their for several years.
@aqdillman71 and @Nickster Our great empty-nester travel plans were wrecked on the shoals of paying for college. Our kid just had to go out of state. Do you know how many colleges let you major/minor in Norwegian? (Don’t even ask, it make no rational sense, just fascination.)
They were building a new one and then the new (at the time) president pushed through a really sketchy one-time vote to get it cancelled. It was a whole weird thing.
Haha!! My twins just started high school, one wants to go to State, the other wants to learn a trade (which changes every few months). Not sure what our youngest will do since he is only 8 now, but we’re still may years away from “empty nesting” and travelling the world. But there is an ember of hope. 
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There obviously a lot of demand here from this airport and region making it so expensive.
@pBeez Norwegian??? LOL. Hopefully that out of state tuition doesn’t break the bank too bad!
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RDU will be getting a lot more business from the military community with the addition of Germany.
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I’m sure that was a factor in this happening. A lot of military families in the surrounding area with Fort Liberty an hour away.
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“A coalition of 11 universities and businesses, including UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, Elon, BASF and Wolfspeed, agreed to offer financial support.”
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I did some checking a few weeks ago and found one (RDU>PVG) for little over 1000 each way. But used 4 different low rate airlines with 6 plane changes and took around 4 days. Not My ideal of something I would want to try, That may airlines and stops almost sure to have problems. LOL
My research says that in 2018, 56,000 people traveled between RDU and China & 30,000 between RDU and India
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