Delta overtakes American as Raleigh/Durham’s top airline; 80+ non-stop destinations in 2026

The development at Raleigh/Durham (RDU) has been considerable recently. In 2024, the airport welcomed nearly 15.5 million passengers, which was by far its best year to date.

The passenger record should be surpassed in 2025, albeit not by a large margin. According to the airport’s data for January to November, some 14.3 million passengers were welcomed, by up 1% or so year-over-year.

One contributing factor has been the recent arrival of more international airlines, which are driven by RDU being among the US’s fastest-growing metro areas. Icelandair arrived in 2022, followed by Air France in 2023, Aeromexico, Copa and Lufthansa in 2024, WestJet in 2025, and Aer Lingus in 2026. However, Bahamasair pulled out in 2024, followed by BermudAir in January 2026.

Delta has overtaken American to be RDU’s leading operator

According to Cirium schedule data for the first half of 2026 (January-June), RDU will be served by 19 passenger airlines. This is based on combining mainline and regional units. With 1.2 million one-way seats, Delta is now RDU’s largest airline. While its capacity has risen by 5% compared to the first half of 2025, American (which was neck-and-neck) has fallen by 4%.

Delta has 23 routes in the examined period. On 11 April 2025, it resumed flying to Indianapolis (daily), having previously served that route until 2020. On 20 December 2025, it began Cancun flights (weekly).

Avelo has revealed it will close its RDU base as part of broader changes across its full network. It has served the North Carolina airport since 2022, although it is not a particularly significant player. Its low-frequency nature means it only has about 1% of the available seats. The airline does not appear in the following image as its schedule is only available until April.

The contrast between Avelo and Breeze could not be starker. Breeze has doubled its RDU presence in the past year, with the airline now the fifth-largest operator. It has 396,000 one-way seats and 8% of the airport’s total. Some 36 routes are planned in the first half.

Nonstop flights to 84 airports

Cirium data shows that RDU has nonstop flights to 70 domestic airports in the first half of 2026. This includes the places Avelo serves, as they’ll operate for some of the analysed period. In addition, 14 international destinations in served in Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe and Mexico.

With 367,000 one-way seats, the hub link to Atlanta remains RDU’s leading market. It always is. Some 86-weekly departing flights are available in April, provided by Delta (72) and Frontier (14). Southwest will cease serving the short route, which covers 575 kilometres, in early March.