Delta Airlines Announces Flights from Raleigh to Paris

There are some exciting things going on in North Carolina this week. The most notable of these would be the upcoming announcement by Delta to start a new flight between Raleigh – RDU, and Paris – Charles de Gaulle. The only other transatlantic route operated from the Raleigh-Durham airport is by American Airlines to London which apparently relies heavily on a subsidy from a pharmaceutical company in the Triangle area. American Airlines previously operated to Paris from Raleigh but to Paris Orly Airport.

Delta had planned to serve the RDU-CDG route back in 2008 but due to cautious financial conditions and a complicated merger then with Northwest Airlines, plans for the new service between the two cities (as well as a few other announced routes by Delta) were shelved to be reviewed at a later date.

You might be thinking, out of all of the possible routes, how did this route get picked? Well, there are a few things that went into the decision, but the most notable was most likely the decision last year in October of 2014 by the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority to pledge $2.1 Million Dollars in first year incentives for an airline to operate a new international route. What is a “First Year” incentive? That is basically when the airport has taken a look at their passenger numbers and realized that they have the traffic to support a route but no airline is willing take the risk of operating a money losing flight. The airport can offer a profit margin guarantee so that if the airline agrees to operate the desired route, should they do not break even on their own, the airport will pay the difference. It’s basically a safety net for new entrants on new routes.

One of the other deciding factors may have also been that over the past 10 years Delta has continued to build up Raleigh as a “focus city” – meaning that they operate more destinations than just their normal hub routes. Currently Delta operates from Raleigh to Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cancún (seasonal), Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus (OH), Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Hartford, Indianapolis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles, Miami (seasonal), Nassau (seasonal), New York-LGA & JFK, Orlando, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City (resumes March 2, 2016).

The new flights will follow the normal pattern of a later departure from the US and a morning arrival in Europe followed by a mid-morning departure from Europe for a mid-afternoon arrival in the states. Some investigating has revealed that Delta has loaded flights from New York’s JFK airport to Raleigh RDU with a Boeing 757 that is configured in an international configuration – which is how the airline will schedule the aircraft in an out of position for the international flights and then return the aircraft to a maintenance base for regular scheduled maintenance.

The current schedule is as follows:

Delta has reconfigured some of its Boeing 757s in recent years, most notably with lay flat seats in First Class cabin which they call Delta One. The current configuration for this aircraft is 16 seats in Delta One in a 2×2 layout of 4 rows. In the Main cabin there are 44 seats for Comfort+ which offers additional legroom and 108 seats in normal economy set in a 3×3 layout. You can check out the aircraft seat map here.

The RDU-CDG route will be one of the longest routes with this type of aircraft at just over 4050 miles. The longest route operated with this aircraft is operated seasonally by Delta between New York JFK and Pisa, Italy at 4131 miles. United Airlines at one point operated Newark to Berlin with a Boeing 757, however it often encountered the need to stop and refuel on westbound returns in spring. United has since upgraded the flights to Boeing 767 wide-body aircraft. While it’s unknown now, it is entirely possible that Delta may decide to upgrade the RDU-CDG flights to a larger aircraft at a later point in time. Either way, we’re happy to see Raleigh getting some new international options.

You can read the full Delta Press Release here.

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