while the numbers of connecting passengers is numerically bigger than it used to be, the math on the 4 month numbers you shared is 61 people connecting a day making connections at RDU. (7340/120 days in the 2024 stats) up from 6 (680/120 from your 2023 stats). One could look at that and say OMG it’s gone up 10x! Not sure what an airline “hotspot” is, but RDU is not on its way to being a “hub” from 60 people a day making a connection here. We are a spoke to many other hub cities, including the 4 international European hubs we now have flights from, along with Mexico and Panama coming soon. People will travel to and from the hubs of London Heathrow (AA), Paris (Air France), Frankfut (Lufthansa), Rekjavik (Icelandair), Panama City (Copa), and Mexico City (Aeromexico), and lastly Montreal and Toronto (Air Canada). But it is each of THESE cities that are the hub. RDU is not the hub for any of these.
Delta has continuously post-COVID stated they treat RDU and Austin as focus cities, but they haven’t defined that well, and don’t currently have the aircraft in the fleet they once flew to and from RDU before COVID when there were another 6-8 nonstop cities from RDU on Delta. Once they get more planes back in their fleet (a supply issue) and more pilots hired (staffing issue) we will likely see more Delta flights to our focus city of RDU.
Currently AA has more passenger traffic than Delta at RDU by about 1%, it’s like 29% AA 28% Delta, followed by Southwest and all the other cats and dogs airlines. United is way back, nothing like AA or Delta’s presence at RDU.
AA continues flying from RDU (a non hub) to several other non-hubs like Austin, Cincinnati, but has dropped other nonhubs from RDU like Orlando and Tampa due to trash numbers for revenue. Too many other competitors. But just last week AA fired their CCO, Chief Commercial Officer, who has been a big proponent of this non-hub to non-hub flying from key cities like RDU. So we will have to see what AA and Delta do as they jockey for market share.
One thing I noticed buried in a document someone else shared here about the RDU plans: the airline club space in terminal 2 is planned to triple or quadruple in size, from the schematics in the doucment. That all apparently happens in Phase ONE of the expanded “landside” facilities which enable expansion of the Customs and Immigration processing.
Anyone notice that really long passageway from the gates at the end of the “C” concourse that is up by the ceiling? Everyone coming international arrivals arrives and immediately goes up the escalator to that opague windowed hallway, and that passageway blocks the ability to expand the club facilities for AA. But the new plans show the bigger space for customs and immigration processing, which is sorely needed due to all these new international flights,so along with increased parking, these are some of the first projects that are coming VERY soon, the next year or so.
For those who don’t use the airline club lounges upstairs (they require a membership or a premium credit card to access, along the lines of $800 a year and usable only when flying the matching airline or partner airline), these are the windowed spaces you see way up above the concourse and accessible by the elevator bank across from gates C3 and D3. The AA club even has shower suites available for members to freshen up, and all 3 have free booze and food.
Once the space exists for more customs and immigration, the plans appear to show way way more space available for existing clubs to expand…Heck maybe we could even get a “fly anyone” bank sponsored lounge like Amex Centurion Lounge or Chase Lounge with all the extra space they’ll be building on the upper level.
RDU likes that (any airport would) because that’s leasable space, i.e. it’s all about the money.
Here are the screen captures i did. I just didn’t write down what page they were from on a VERY long RDU document…It was like 1800 pages long and publicly available
Current space on upper level lounges in T2 (just the DL and AA lounges in this screen capture but they plan to expand space over at the United Lounge to the left side of TSA screening).
Future expansion in Phase 1 of T2 landside expansion projects:
(only showing the Delta/AA club space changes, not the United club space on the left of TSA)
the areas in gray are mechanical HVAC equipment which is unchangeable/not moveable, but will help orient you to what you’re looking at before and after expansion.
Combined Overlay of existing and expanded available space, to get a sense of the new expanded size available for existing clubs or even possibly more clubs than currently at RDU:
Bottom line, RDU is growing, but it’s not going to be a hub. Just an increasingly large spoke. It was the fastest growing large US airport for the 12 months for 2023, from US Dept of Transp stats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhJ6-_Skr4E
Coming soon and local spots shown primarily.
