RDU lands nonstop flight to Paris
Triangle Business Journal - by Chris Baysden and Chris Coletta
Media
Delta Air Lines will begin nonstop service between Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Paris starting in June 2009, RDU and the airline announced Thursday.
The flights will operate five days a week on Boeing 757-200 aircraft, which carry 174 passengers each. The planes will take passengers between RDU and Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
Delta says the Paris flights, through an agreement with Air France, can connect passengers to more than 90 cities across Europe. “The tourism and business opportunities are endless on this route,” Bob Cortelyou, Delta’s senior vice president for network planning, said to the 75 people gathered for the historic announcement in the ticketing lobby of RDU's new Terminal 2.
The RDU-Paris flight is a boon for the local business community, which currently can reach only one trans-Atlantic destination nonstop from the Triangle. American Airlines offers daily service between RDU and London.
“Paris is a key destination for our traveling business community,” said economic developer Charles Hayes, who also spoke at the event.
Hayes, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, said the Paris flight would be particularly important to Triangle companies with operations overseas. The service also will be of great benefit to Triangle universities, whose faculties and student bodies include a sizeable number of foreign nationals.
Airport Authority Chairman Michael Weeks said the expanded international capacity of the new Terminal 2 helped RDU land the flight – and the additional exposure that comes with it.
“It will increase our stature on a world market as an international destination,” Weeks said.
Until this week, there were no nonstop flights out of North Carolina to Paris. Earlier this week, US Airways said it would reinstate a seasonal flight between Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and Paris that it had nixed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“This flight will be strategically important for North Carolina and the region,” N.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Jim Fain said in a written statement. “In addition to supporting two-way tourism, it will facilitate business relationships between North Carolina and France.”
Flights out of RDU’s Terminal 2 will leave the airport at 6:20 p.m. Eastern time and arrive at Paris at 8:35 a.m. local time the next day. Flights out of Paris will leave Charles de Gaulle at 10:30 a.m. local time and arrive at RDU at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time.
Flights out of RDU will operate every day except Monday and Thursday. Flights out of Paris will operate every day except Wednesday and Saturday.
Citing industry studies, RDU officials estimate that a daily long-haul international flight has an economic impact in the ballpark of $200 million a year. The airport’s international traffic totaled more than half a million passengers in the year that ended in the first quarter of 2008.
In addition to London and Paris, RDU's other international destinations are Toronto, Canada, and, on a seasonal basis, Cancún, Mexico.
Special $599 one-way fare
Delta says it will launch the flights with a special, one-way fare of $599 from Raleigh-Durham to Paris for travel through June 30, 2009. That special rate is currently available until Nov. 21 of this year, and tickets are limited.
According to Delta’s Web site, a roundtrip flight between RDU and Paris that left North Carolina on Dec. 1 and came back Dec. 8 would cost around $850, including taxes and fees. It would include a long layover at one of several U.S. airports on the trips to and from Europe.
To fly between RDU and Paris in June 2009, when the nonstop flights are scheduled to begin, would currently cost between $1,406 and $1,522, including taxes and fees, according to Delta’s Web site. The cheapest fare includes two stops, first in New York, then in Boston. All the flights except one have layovers on the way to Europe of at least two hours.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL), based in Atlanta, also announced on Thursday flights between Pittsburgh International Airport and Paris.
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