Took Breeze up to White Plains and the trip was solid. I’ll probably give them another go.
I just flew Frontier from RDU to Portland, OR through Denver. I doubt I’ll choose them again for a long flight itinerary. The seats don’t recline, they also don’t have any entertainment or power at the seats. The tray tables are itty bitty and can’t even hold the smallest of laptops, and there’s also no Internet. You can only carry on an under-seat personal item for free, and you have to pay for your seat. I don’t need a cheap flight that much. I ended up paying their $121 bundle that allowed me to take a roll-a-board, choose my seat, and board first. That bundle was more than double the fare!
I think that I’d take these ultra low fare airlines for trips of 90 minutes or less, which gets you nearly everywhere east of the Mississippi from RDU.
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I flew them once. Never again. Horrible experience.
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my flight stopped in vegas, red eye back to RDU, and people got on in LAS with baggage consisting of all their belongings IN PLASTIC TRASH BAGS. gotta love ULCC airlines haha
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Ah, Las Vegas. I hate that town.
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Frontier, Spirit, etc are great for going down to Orlando. Dirt cheap. Don’t know if I’d fly them anywhere else.
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The first time I tried to fly them years ago, the flight was canceled and they rebooked me for 3 days later. I had to find another way home and never got my money back. It was a risk to fly with them again, especially on a connecting itinerary. I was lucky that the flights went off without a hitch. Still, the lack of any services or comforts is what sinks them for me (at least for long flights).
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Geez why did you never get your money back for a flight they cancelled?
Because they rebooked me 3 days later, and that was perceived by them to fulfill their obligation to me as a customer.
The fare was really low (like $39) and they guessed correctly that my time was going to be more important to me than my money.
Nashville was chosen over RDU for the Aer Lingus nonstop to Dublin. An analyst mentioned he wouldn’t be surprised if it happened in 2025 for whichever wasn’t chosen first.
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Bummer about Aer Lingus. I think they’re announcing 1 more city this year. Probably a Midwest one.
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Yeah probably get Aer Lingus eventually. There’s only so many big airports in the US you can expand to and RDU is within A321XLR and B373 Max range.
Seeing as Raleigh is now the US headquarters of a famous Swiss watchmaking company it would be interesting if in the future we get a Swiss Air flight–seeing as they are part of Lufthansa it would be much easier to set up as all the facilities and workers can be shared.
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Ohhhh YES!! I could go visit my incredibly distant Swiss cousins. 
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Would love to get a direct flight to Zurich from Raleigh. That is my home city.
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Regarding Nashville getting Aer Lingus but not RDU getting Aer Lingus, here are some things things to keep in perspective of RDU vs Nashville international air service:
Up until a couple of weeks ago, the ONLY nonstop European flights Nashville has had in its entire history was a 4x a week flight to London on British Airways that started in 2018. That’s VERY new. RDU has had nonstop flights to London on American Airlines since 1994, and it’s been 7 days a week.
Nashville’s nonstop London flight only operated 4 days a week until it was increased to 5 days a week this year. RDU has had better service than Nashville literally DECADES LONGER. Both airports have similar size planes, variations of 777 aircraft. Basically same or similar capacity. (British Airways and American Airlines have a joint venture where it makes zero difference financially or operationally which airline operates the flight to/from London. Some cities BA does it (Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis) and others AA does it (RDU, Charlotte, This route from major US cities to London Heathrow is the busiest and most profitable international airline route IN THE WORLD. That’s why AA and BA have “flooded the zone” with some SIXTY FLIGHTS A DAY nonstop from all over the US to Heathrow. No other airline can compete with AA/BA service through their OneWorld alliance. It’s not even close. Not Delta. Not United. Not Air France. Not Lufthansa.
So Nashville airport just a couple weeks ago announced new Summer 2025 service on Icelandair. RDU has had Icelandair a full 3 years ahead of Nashville, having started flights to RDU in May 2022 and flies more days per week than Nashville is getting in May 2025. RDU gets 7 days a week year-round. Nashville gets 4 days a week to Reykjavik, Iceland where Europe connections are made to 25+ other Europe cities just as easily as you could connect thru London, Paris, or Frankfurt.
Speaking of Lufthansa and Nashville Airport…here’s some tea…
The “leisure airline” division of Lufthansa Airlines is named Discover Airlines (with a whopping 27 airplanes in the fleet) Discover was sniffing around Nashville to start new flights for Summer of 2025 from Frankfurt to Nashville, as recently as a couple weeks ago. Things were VERY far along negotiating a deal. But…The Nashville Airport Authority (like RDU Airport Authority, but runs Nashville) jumped the gun, publicly announced and tweeted about new Discover Airlines flights from Nashville to Frankfurt Germany before Discover was able to announce it themselves All the way down to publishing the days of the week and flight times for May 2025 to and from Germany…Discover had heard Aer Lingus was likely coming, at least interested, it was very public, and said "Peace the F out, Nashville," and completely cancelled their 2025 expansion to Nashville. Oops… Would love something like this with Nashville and their MLB pursuit, but that’s a different topic!
So at Nashville, after IcelandAir does their thing and Lufthansa/Discover puts Nashville on their “no fly list,” Aer Lingus which is a separate company owned by the same parent company as who owns British Airways works to finalize their agreement to fly Nashville to Europe nonstop, but Ireland (just like IcelandAir uses Iceland). So AerLingus is “all in the family.” meaning it makes more sense to start Europe to Nashville with Aer Lingus than a different random airline like Air France or Lufthansa (or Delta or United)…not because British Air and AerLingus re colluding, but because the parent company is a bit familiar and experienced with what to expect from Nashville, vs someone new starting completely out of the blue.
The only other international nonstops Nashville has are to Cancun/Dominican Republic/Jamaica and several ultra low cost leisure carriers to vacation spots via (Viva Aerobus and Flair Airlines, again with teeny tiny fleets of planes), and to random cities in Canada via Air Canada & Westjet. RDU has AirCanada, but not yet any other Canadian Airlines, but that’ll likely change in the next 3-5 years.
For RDU, the passenger numbers of people flying between RDU and any of the Europe cities we now have nonstops to (Lufthansa to Frankfurt , Air France to Paris, AA to London, and IcelandAir to Reykjavik) are significantly LESS THAN the number of seats currently being offerd by these airlines for these markets. This is from historic measurements when tracking passengers in RDU making connections or nonstops on AA to Europe. There are a number of empty seats flying RDU to/from Europe, which is no bueno. Airlines need to fill the seats to make more money.
Aside on data/stats: RDU also has service to Mexico City on AeroMexico and to Panama City on Copa. Nashville has none of that (yet). The number of passengers on the planes have been quite high to/from RDU (especially more passengers coming TO RDU than FROM here.
Stats I’ve seen on aviation nerd sites providing % of seats filled on ALL these RDU nonstop international flights as mid to high 80% into the low-to-mid 90% (Air France is ESPECIALLY doing well). The AA flight has gotten a little LESS % than it used to when it had the entire Europe nonstop market to/from RDU all to itself, so that makes sense. Just because a plane is a high % filled seats does NOT mean it’s making profits. The data on flight numbers of passengers, average fares, number of seats available, etc. are all in industry databases, some of which require subscriptions but some data is published by RDU and other places like the US Dept of Transportation, for any data nerds.
So all that to say: RDU is realistically “over served” with current nonstop flights to Europe; we actually probably dodged a bullet by not getting Aer Lingus for next summer. They will likely eventually start RDU but we really need to focus on getting the existing RDU nonstops to Europe mature… meaning getting pasenger numbers to GROW so flights are more full or even maxed out so that none of them drop their routes.
There is zero chance AA will drop, but if they didn’t make enough $, the others are at risk. RDU does spend marketing funds to advertise and make the public aware of the new service. These “air service incentives” that last 12-24 months are part of why airlines randomly start (and stop, when the air service incentive period runs out.) Think of it like a guarantee to allow enough time for the routes to become known, establish reliability/affordability/ease of travel so that by the time the promo period is over, they can stand on their own feet.
EVERY airport in the US does this, it’s not unique to RDU, and it’s NOT taxpayer money. It’s all from the RDU Airport Authority, which is not a government body. It operates as a not-for-profit enterprise, quasi-governmental in that board members who lead it are appointed by various government officials like mayors of Raleigh, Durham, Wake County and Durham County leaders, and I believe possibly the NC governor but I may have that wrong about the gov. Someone can fact check me; this is running to long for me to stop and go look it up!)
Once upon a time the organization that runs RTP (Research Triangle Institute i think it’s called) used to offer a guarantee to AA for them to never lose $ on the flight to London from RDU. My understanding is this “revenue guarantee” that was put in place in the 90’s has never once kicked in since the service has been wildly successful for American. There is quite a bit of cargo carried on the route as well, large amounts of biotech cago.
Anyway, that’s a little perspective on Nashville getting something bright and shiny that we didn’t get. We’re still WAYYYYY far ahead of Nashville, ironically. Stuff like this is easy to miss when reading and thinking perhaps “there goes Nashville again passing by Raleigh.” It’s actually quite the other way around! Nashville has quite a way to go to catch RDU even though overall airport passenger numbers for ALL destinations to/from Nashville exceeds RDU (Nashvegas is 28th in the US for 2023 passenger numbers, while RDU is 35th).
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Solid breakdown.
I would think AF/Paris is boosted by how many connections can be made via Delta to RDU.
Lufthansa/Frankfurt may be somewhat limited in that regard with United only flying to hubs that already service that route, but I would think 80%+ loads aren’t too bad for a brand new route that not everyone is aware of just yet.
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Interestingly, on my way back to the US last week, I was originally scheduled to fly from Prague to London, then to Raleigh, with British Airways and American Airlines. However, my London flight was delayed, causing me to miss my connection to Raleigh. British Airways ended up rerouting me onto a flight to Dulles, and then I caught a United flight to Raleigh.
It was pretty cool to see two different airline alliances working together to make sure I got home! Plus, I got to fly on an A380 again—though I have to say, the A380s on British Airways are really starting to show their age.
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I’m confused, aren’t these contradictory? Are the passenger numbers too low from RDU to Europe, or are those flights 85-95% full? Or is 85-95% full still too low?
Oh, I almost forgot—JT International is moving its U.S. office to Raleigh! Even though it’s a Japanese company, it’s also headquartered in Switzerland.
We really need to attract more Swiss businesses here!
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