New Service to Salt Lake City Expands Travel from RDU to West Coast

RDU Airport, NC – Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Thursday, June 2, will welcome new nonstop service to Salt Lake City, Utah. Delta Airlines will offer the daily flight. From Salt Lake passengers will have access to more than 50 US cities, including popular West Coast destinations.

The inaugural flight will depart from RDU at 7:30 a.m. The RDU Airport Authority will greet the flight’s passengers at a launch party near the Delta Airlines ticket counter. The airline will offer one flight a day to and from Salt Lake.

Nearly 70,000 people travel between RDU and Salt Lake City each year. In the last five years, the market has grown more than 70 percent. This is the first time nonstop service has been offered between RDU and Delta’s third largest hub.

“Delta is proud to offer new flights from Raleigh-Durham, and with our new non-stop flight to Salt Lake City, we can now offer customers convenient connections to cities throughout the western United States,” said Doug Blissit, Delta’s vice president – network analysis. “In terms of daily departures, as of July this year, RDU will be the 11th largest market in Delta’s network. And given Delta’s success in Raleigh-Durham, we are actively looking at additional new market opportunities.”

“Nonstop service to Salt Lake City benefits local business travelers who need air service to a point farther west than Dallas or Chicago,” said John Lewis, president and CEO of Travel Management Partners of Raleigh. “By getting farther west in the morning, travelers can arrive at their destinations earlier and have more of the ‘business day’ to devote to work.”

The daily flight to Salt Lake arrives at RDU on the heels of the airport’s air service study, which identified top destinations for the airport to target in its marketing efforts. The study cited cities west of the Mississippi as priorities for nonstop air service.

“One of the goals of air service development is to reduce the time it takes passengers to travel to a destination,” said Teresa Damiano, director of marketing for RDU. “With nonstop service to Salt Lake City, passengers can now get to the West Coast faster, while also gaining access to other western cities.”

Salt Lake City is the latest addition to Delta’s schedule at RDU. In 2004, the airline introduced service to New Orleans and added additional flights to Orlando, Tampa and Boston.

Fast Facts on Air Service at RDU

In addition to being home to one of Delta’s hubs, Salt Lake is a popular leisure destination, connecting passengers to world-class ski resorts, five national and 46 state parks and 100 golf courses.
From Salt Lake City, passengers can travel nonstop to popular West Coast cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and San Diego. These cities were recently identified as top destinations for RDU passengers traveling west of the Mississippi.
RDU’s recent air service study analyzed passenger traffic between RDU and destinations with sufficient passengers to support air service. The top five markets identified by the study were: Los Angeles Basin, San Francisco Bay area, Denver, San Diego and Seattle.
Nearly 380,000 people travel between RDU and the Los Angeles region each year.
The San Francisco Bay area, with its access to San Jose and Silicon Valley, generates 255,500 passengers a year.
In 2004, 8.6 million passengers traveled through RDU, an 8.7 percent increase over 2003.
In the first four months of 2005, 2,839,000 passengers traveled through RDU – a 12 percent increase over the same period last year.
An estimated 9.6 million passengers will travel through RDU in 2005 – a return to pre-September 11 numbers.
Airlines serving RDU offer area travelers 237 daily departures to 37 cities.
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