It’s part of the fun. Honestly I hate flying, but I like good airport restaurants and drinks. It’s the only part of the experience I look forward to besides my destination. I liked being able to plan on my $30 cup of lobster bisque and $40 cocktail at 42nd St Oyster Bar just past security, but now there’s nothing except a can of beer and a bread at La Farm.
6 Likes
I enjoy my little airport cheat day of fast food with a spicy chicken sandwich from Popeye’s but I do wish there were places to sit and have a drink.
The airport bar is one of life’s great egalitarian in-between places.
5 Likes
To be fair, the company that had the retail/food and beverage concession going into COVID was not renewed by the airport authority. (They were responsible to recruit vendors and in some cases staff them ). I’m not sure which came first: the selection of a replacement retail/f&b concession management firm or them just seeming to have thrown in the towel from March 2020 till about Dec 2023 when they seemed unable/unwilling to reopen most of their outlets. Regardless of which came about first, the new selection of outlets ought to be a big step up from what we had pre-COVID.
5 Likes
Ahhhh good to know. RDU certainly is a step backward from other airports in that regard. Glad to know there is at least a reason behind all closed concessions.
1 Like
What I heard at a press conference a few months ago (god I wish I could find the YouTube link), they ended up switching to being airport-operated. So instead of hiring a firm, they now run that themselves. They had to individually negotiate with the restaurants and it was a long process because they had to start everything from the beginning.
4 Likes
The only airports where I care about finding food are those where I have a layover. I never plan on a generous amount of time when departing, and I never linger in an airport when I land at my final destination. I can understand grabbing breakfast food when leaving really early in the AM, but that’s typically the only times I am eating at an airport.
6 Likes
To paraphrase a popular meme, some people want to show up to the airport two hours before their flight. Some people want to walk onto the jet bridge as the door closes. And the two types always end up dating each other.
12 Likes
Lol! My penguin half 
likes to get there nice and early and I certainly do not. But having good food and drink options makes it more fun for me. Which is why RDU has been so annoying for the last 4 years.
5 Likes
Exactly…PLUS it gives off a terrible Goober reputation that really isn’t warranted for Raleigh or Durham. I mean if I didn’t live here and I was just flying through RDU I would think "WOW… is this best this City can offer for an airport terminal…??? I mean I don’t need a lot in an airport terminal except to catch a plane…but RDU is really run down. Like an old greyhound bus station in the middle of nowhere. ======
3 Likes
RDU consistently ranks highly in quality rankings and on a pure anecdotal level most people I know love it. People understand that it’s a very nice airport terminal that is clearly at an awkward time point in terms of turning over its vendors.
It’s nowhere close to old or run down.
10 Likes
Just need better tenants. It should attract business such as so many people travel here for business maybe tenants should be luxury vendors so travelers can have an airport store to get quick things.
Maybe Terminal 1, but not Terminal 2. Then again, Terminal 1 sort of matches the product being offered.
5 Likes
Yeah, I think the main terminal (Terminal 2) is a very nice building that has really aged well (it opened in 2008, I believe). IMO it is still a very nice building. I really like the architecture. The concessions are okay, but hopefully about to get a lot better. I think it compares well with comparably sized competitors.
Terminal 1, on the other hand definitely feels like the budget area. The building itself isn’t as nice and the concessions are lower quality but still pricey.
I also think it is inconvenient that the two terminals don’t have a post-security connection. It doesn’t really matter for me, but I can see how it would be confusing to people not familiar with the airport who might go to the wrong one.
3 Likes
To be fair, plenty of airports don’t have that connection between terminals with different airlines. And knowing your terminal is pretty darn basic.
1 Like
I don’t fly all that much, but RDU T1 still has a significantly better feel than most airports out there. It feels at least average, perhaps slightly above.
T2 is just an absolutely world class facility, especially for the size market we are. Better than lots of airports in much larger cities, with much higher passenger counts. Many airports have nice atriums or whatever but compared to RDU, they all feel like abject dumps once you get down to the ends of the concourses by the gates. RDU is now like 15 years old but it still packs just as much of an impressive “punch” as it did when it first opened. Very few airports have the same “wow” factor from the moment you step out of the jetway.
13 Likes
tell me you fly out of Terminal 1
without telling me you fly out of Terminal 1
Terminal 2 is HARDLY “like an old greyhound bus station”
It was designed by the same architect who did the Denver Airport, Curtiss Fentress, an NCSU architecture grad, and the building is very modern, open, spacious, light-filled, and has a generous amount of retail space (currently being renovated with the new contract by Grove Bay Hospitality Group of Miami). Giant arching roofs and walls of windows and mezzanine level airline clubs look down on the moving sidewalks along the concourse below. I’ve never seen “an old greyhound bus station” like that.
Terminal 1 is a conglomeration of several buildings, one of which was part of the original terminal from the 1950s, part of those original terminal spaces were demolished, but that has had the lipstick on a pig treatment, but that does not do T1 justice.
T1 is where all the ultra-low-cost carriers fly (Avelo, Breeze, Sun Country, Spirit), along with Southwest and Alaska.
5 Likes
I fly all the time and love RDU, so this is another example I just don’t get. Sure the restaurants are closed, but there’s like 10 under construction so it’s obviously a WIP. Terminal 2 is airy, spacious, and timeless. They will continue to iterate inside and expand.
Reagan national, Detroit, SLC, Seattle, and RDU are my top 5 all around. Very different airports but all great, and yes I put RDU in the great category as confirmed by mid size airport rankings. Most airports still make you take stuff out. “Everything stays in the bag at RDU”
IMO RDU’s biggest negative is not having attached rental car pickup, but a fix is already planned for that, and it’ll be perfect. I don’t knock the lack of transit since we don’t have rail or BRT stood up yet. It’s embarrassing Douglas doesn’t have light rail connectivity since the city does, for example.
5 Likes
they have been trying to get Charlotte connected to light rail, but it looks like the state government won’t fund it. This seems like something that is unlikely to happen anytime in the next 20 years.
Well…I knew I was going to take some flack over that comment. I fly Delta out of Terminal 2. I haven’t flown out of Terminal 1 in several, several years.
I look forward to the day that the RDU Terminal 2 is up and running fully re-done with shops, restaurants, etc on par with destinations I have been to lately. I honestly look forward to eating my words very soon.
Personally i dont get “old greyhound bus station” vibes from RDU. Or at least I’ve never seen a bus station that looks like these pics from RDU:
I don’t see greyhound bus station at either at T2, the terminal Delta uses that @svp flies out of, or even at T1, where the “other” riff raff airlines fly (JK. )
Terminal 1 has even been upgraded from this 1950’s facility, which definitely gave off bus station vibes, because, well, the 1950’s:
This ancient building was added onto behind and to the right, then demolished 10-15 years ago to leave what is now Terminal 1, which while having less pizazz, had a renovation budget 10% of the new construction budget for Terminal 2. It’s not bad now. Plans call for some drastic improvements at T1, too.
Even the parking garage is nice. The short one that’s not so nice (NOT the one pictured) is about to be demolished in the next 12-18 months to make way for the ground transportation center and consolidated rental car garage. I’ve always gotten “embassy suites atrium, but for cars” kind of vibes in the large garage LOL.
25 Likes