Charlotte-UAE will usually have tailwind and many choices of where to stop and refuel if necessary. Raleigh-Tokyo or wherever will usually have headwind, and once you get past Anchorage you don’t have many options for fuel. We will see. Even though RDU got funding only for 10639, surely they are scoping the project to make it easy to add another 400-700 feet at a later date.
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Per the N&O…..”The safety zone at the north end of the new runway, near Lumley Road, will be sized to allow an extension in the future.”
Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article311749812.html#storylink=cpy
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Extending the runway is in plans. Just a funding and FAA thing for now
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I will let you know about the CLT to Abu Dhabi flight as I am booked in May. I saw the flight route and it is like an European flight over the north Atlantic then over Greece/Turkey on its way to the UAE. It is the longest flight ever from NC and bookings must be strong as they are starting it now in March 2 months earlier than the anticipated May start.
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I haven’t flown on Etihad, but I have on Emirates. Etihad has a cooperative deal with American, so it’s natural for them to serve CLT. If one’s destination is India, Thailand, etc, then connecting in the UAE can be quite appealing compared to the hodge-podge, congested, and weather-prone airports like LHR, CDG, and FRA.
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Avelo is in a difficult moment, and Breeze has become formidable at RDU.
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I just never understood Avelo’s strategy here. Their route and plane selection never made sense to me. Breeze seems more coherent.
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Breeze just announced flights to Madison, San Antonio, and Atlantic City.
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Madison but no Birmingham yet? Cmon Breeze, @pBeez and I are waiting.
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I do want to visit Madison but the only thing I want to see in B’ham is pbeez. And he comes to us.
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I flew Breeze back and forth from Portland Maine last weekend during the ice storm. When so many large carriers were canceling we were on schedule both ways. Took off in a blizzard in Maine. Very nice planes and great staff. Very impressed with this carrier hope to see them continue to go big at RDU.
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Interesting, last time I had to travel to ACY I flew to Philly with American and then rode a bus between airports (the bus was operated by American from out of the airport, I didn’t go Greyhound or anything).
I could have Flown Spirit, but it was like a whole day of traveling and a detour through Florida.
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Maybe will get a hub. Hopefully the anti growth nimby won’t use noise, or an excuse like climate change to help block it. I hear FedEX wanted a hub here but NIMBYs blocked that too. What the latest on tat whitewater center.
I never heard that about Fedex, which has a relatively small operation at GSO. Noise hasn’t been that much of an issue at RDU since the generation of aircraft with low-bypass turbofans was retired.
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yes, Fedex had considered building a large sorting/distribution center at Greensboro, Raleigh, and Kinston “Global Transpark” back in the day. RDU pursued it as it was touted as 600-1500 jobs, but would have come with a lot of late night and overnight flights over North Raleigh, Brier Creek, and West Cary / Morrisville. Those would be new cargo flights (potentially on much larger aircraft than were flying passengers into RDU at the time) with noisier aircraft during quiet times well after passenger planes had stopped, leading to residents pushing back.
Ultimately Greensboro was selected due to a number of factors, including surface transportation interstate connections in all 4 directions. They built a new runway to serve Fedex primarily, but from online reports, the number of employees and job creation numbers didn’t ever materialize to the 1500 number even 20 years later. There’s some wikipedia info available plus WRAL that makes me think they maybe gotten up to around 800 new jobs out of it by now, but it opened during the global economic downturn in 2008-2009 with only about 400 employees.
Kinston would never have made economic sense, but the state had poured TONS of $ into that airport down East and wanted that investment to pay off sort of at any cost to save face politically. At the end of the day, Greensboro really NEEDED something to maintain their relevance as an airport because such a large number of their passengers drive to either Charlotte or RDU because of cheaper ticket prices and incomparably more flight options from both airports. They are clinging to a dwindling number of flights that look nothing like the momentum that especially RDU has experienced without being a national hub like CLT is for AA. Greensboro has fought for scraps and taken on lots of “cats and dogs” of non-passenger manufacturing developments like this. Some, like Honda Aircraft are doing pretty well from what I understand, but others like Boom Supersonic and Jetzero I don’t think will ever become profitable businesses. They just have a lot of venture capital invested and are burning thru it. RDU is probably in a much stronger position having not won the Fedex operation, but at the time it was probably a disapointment coming at the time AA had cut their hub and Midway was trying to rebuild the hub at RDU in AA’s place.
Kind of a fascinating story about the rise and fall of aviation in NC. Greensboro was just minutes a away from Winston Salem INT Airport in downtown Winston, which was the headquarters for the very successful Piedmont Airlines. Ultimately Piedmont decamped from INT and moved everything to GSO, but ultimately they needed more and got that at CLT. The way things turned out, Greensboro is kind of like Charlie Brown on Halloween: “I got a rock.”
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Thanks, that explains it.
For most Triad residents, RDU is easier to reach than CLT. Hand-to-hand competition between airlines at RDU tends to keep fares lower than at CLT. Parking and traffic flow at CLT is typically chaotic. The B and C concourses at CLT were designed for Piedmont’s 737s that were much smaller than aircraft flown today. Triad residents are welcome at RDU.
I’ve actually had the reverse happen… a flight into CLT where I was supposed to make a connection for RDU had to divert to GSO instead. I just took an Uber from GSO instead of wasting more hours.
Fedex flew some relatively noisy DC-10/MD-10s and 727s, but the terrible noise-makers were the DC-9s from Airborne/DHL and the DC-8s from Emery. Those gave cargo airlines a bad rep.
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Despite it not feeling that way at the time, the loss of the AA/Midway Hub ended up being one of the best things to happen to RDU.
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How? Brings the area noriety.