Raleigh-Durham International Airport
Raleigh/Durham · United States · America/New_York
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Route Intelligence
Airport Connectivity Score
Regional Hub
Calculated from destination count, airline diversity, and haul-mix coverage. More signals (customs/border access, ground handling capacity) will be added as the dataset grows.
Runways
Haul Mix
Geographic Context
10 Nearest Airports
ATC Frequencies9
Top Aircraft Types
Live Departures & Arrivals4
Source: adsb.lol — community ADS-B network. Approximate local traffic within 40nm, not a definitive schedule.
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Airline Records in Dataset19
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Airport HistoryEst. 1943
Raleigh-Durham International Airport opened in 1943 as a wartime Army Air Forces airfield, its first terminal literally built from surplus barracks materials, before transitioning to civilian service and eventually becoming the aviation anchor of North Carolina's Research Triangle region. Decades of terminal construction, including a 1987 American Airlines hub facility and a 2008-2011 rebuild of Terminal 2, have shaped the modern two-terminal airport, which has weathered several serious accidents over its history and continues to set passenger records into the mid-2020s.
Raleigh-Durham Airport opens on May 1, 1943, as an Army Air Forces Air Technical Service Command airfield; its first passenger terminal is built from materials salvaged from four Army barracks, and Eastern Air Lines operates the inaugural flights.
The original Terminal 1 is constructed from the former Army barracks structure, later formally opening as Terminal A/Terminal 1 in 1982.
On November 12, 1975, Eastern Air Lines Flight 576 crashes short of runway 23, injuring eight of the 139 people aboard.
American Airlines builds a dedicated hub terminal at RDU, launching service to 38 cities and making the airport a significant connecting hub through the 1990s.
On December 13, 1994, American Eagle Flight 3379 crashes near Morrisville, North Carolina, killing 15 of the 20 people aboard, one of the airport's most serious accidents.
A new Terminal 2, designed by Fentress Architects, is completed on the site of the former Terminal C between 2008 and 2011.
The airport handles roughly 15.64 million passengers in 2025, a new annual record, with Delta Air Lines as the leading carrier and Breeze Airways planning an operating base in 2026.
General encyclopedic sources (Wikipedia, NTSB accident summaries). Additional serious incidents occurred at RDU (e.g., a 1971 mid-air collision and a 1988 AVAir crash) beyond those listed here; only a representative subset of major accidents is included. 2025/2026 traffic and carrier-base plans reflect the most recent reporting available as of research date.