Beginning this fall, customers at Raleigh-Durham International Airport will have the opportunity to fly nonstop to Grand Bahama Island. Vision Airlines announced it will launch the new service from RDU beginning Friday, November 4.
Vision will offer the scheduled service on Mondays and Fridays using a Boeing-737. Grand Bahama Island is home to many resorts, as well as the city of Freeport.
Airport Authority Board Chair Terry Yeargan has announced that the Board is making progress in the search for a new airport director for Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
ADK Executive Search, the firm hired by the Board to facilitate the process, received 52 applications. The Board narrowed the field to a smaller number of applicants. Those candidates are now being screened in greater detail against the position criteria.
A significant portion of Terminal 1 is set to close as RDU begins a modernization project on the building's central section.
The airport will close the pedestrian tunnel from the parking garage complex to Terminal 1, as well as the section that houses Bag Claims 1-3 and Gates A9-A19. The closure is necessary to allow contractors to safely conduct pre-construction surveys of the building ahead of construction beginning in Spring 2012.
Great things are in the air at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. As summer travel through RDU winds down after summer vacations and school trips, we are pleased to see a few new happenings on the horizon.
Vision Airlines has announced that it plans to begin non-stop service from RDU to Grand Bahama Island in November via a Boeing 737 aircraft. The twice-weekly service gives RDU its fourth non-stop international and only Caribbean destination. The announcement of this flight to a mostly leisure and resort destination demonstrates the airline industry's confidence in the economy of our region.
Air traffic is up slightly in the first half of 2011, according to statistics received by the Airport Authority Board of Directors.
From January 1 through June 30, 2011, commercial passenger traffic was up a slight 1.6 percent over the same period in 2010, with 4.4 million passengers traveling through the airport during that time. Of those passengers, 88,646 flew nonstop to or from an international destination, a 12.9 percent increase over last year.
As everyone knows, summer in the Triangle has been a hot season so far. Usually, the heat of summer brings out a large number of air travelers going on vacation to visit family and friends in other parts of the country and the world. That means June and July usually are the top two travel months of the year, with October normally coming in third. June and July again are the two highest volume travel months in 2011, but there hasn't been much growth in activity as compared to 2010 even though RDU has more flights and more seats available this year than last.
Somewhere among the passengers walking down the concourses at RDU is the airport’s version of secret agents. Their mission: to test, evaluate and observe many aspects of customer service.
Customers are very satisfied with Raleigh-Durham International Airport, according to a customer satisfaction survey conducted by the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority. A total of 500 passengers were interviewed using a 90-question survey on all aspects of their travel experience through RDU.
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