Raleigh-Durham International Airport is raising its daily parking rates on Jan. 16.

The maximum daily rate will increase from $10 to $12. The increase was approved at the RDU Airport Authority's most recent board meeting.

Rates for the park-and-ride lots remain the same: $6 for each 24-hour period.

The increase is part of RDU's plan to pay for the $570 million it spend on Terminal 2, plus debt service and renovations planned for Terminal 1.

The increase was originally scheduled to take place in 2008. Better than expected revenues caused the authority to delay implementing it.

Twenty-nine years and four months after it opened at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, the ugly blue box formerly known as Terminal A will serve its last passengers today.  It will not be missed.

AirTran Airlines, with four daily flights to and from Atlanta, is the last carrier still operating in the big central section of what RDU now calls Terminal 1.  After the last flights tonight leave at 7:59 p.m. and arrive at 11:40 p.m., the security checkpoint and bag-claim carousels will shut down.

Starting Tuesday, AirTran will be housed in the old north end of Terminal 1 -- sharing desk space, security checkpoint and baggage carousels with its new corporate parent, Southwest Airlines. AirTran will use Gate A24.

What happens next? RDU will close off the central section of Terminal 1 later this year in preparation for a $60 million makeover.  ... [MORE]

Twenty-nine years and four months after it opened at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, the ugly blue box formerly known as Terminal A will serve its last passengers today.  It will not be missed.

AirTran Airlines, with four daily flights to and from Atlanta, is the last carrier still operating in the big central section of what RDU now calls Terminal 1.  After the last flights tonight leave at 7:59 p.m. and arrive at 11:40 p.m., the security checkpoint and bag-claim carousels will shut down.

Starting Tuesday, AirTran will be housed in the old north end of Terminal 1 -- sharing desk space, security checkpoint and baggage carousels with its new corporate parent, Southwest Airlines. AirTran will use Gate A24.

What happens next? RDU will close off the central section of Terminal 1 later this year in preparation for a $60 million makeover.  ... [MORE]

JetBlue Airways, the discount airline with flights to three destinations from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, will move its operations into Terminal 2 starting Wednesday. [See 5/12/11 story "At RDU, a flourish for Terminal 2; a fix for Terminal 1."]

Passengers who fly JetBlue to New York Kennedy, Boston and Fort Lauderdale will use gates C8 and C10 in the new Terminal 2.

The move will leave Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airlines, whose merger was completed last week, as the only carriers using Terminal 1.

AirTran will move later this month into the north end of Terminal 1, where Southwest is located now, so RDU can close the main part of the building in advance of a Terminal 1 renovation project that will start next year.