If you didn’t notice expansion work at RDU’s main terminal before, you will now
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Terminal 2 north expansion work has become visible to RDU travelers.
- Project will add new ticket island and two baggage carousels and create larger CBP area.
- RDU will boost international screening capacity to about 1,000 passengers an hour by 2029.
A multi-year effort to expand the main terminal at Raleigh-Durham International Airport is well underway, but you probably haven’t noticed.
Starting this week, you will.
Overnight Thursday, workers erected a big plastic sheet over the north end of the terminal’s main hall where passengers buy tickets and drop bags. Workers will soon erect a temporary wall behind the sheet, before removing the windows.
It’s the most visible step so far in a two-year effort to add about 400 feet to the north end of the building. The expansion will create more space for ticketing counters, baggage claim carousels and the area where arriving international passengers clear customs.
The work shouldn’t affect passengers, said Bill Sandifer, the airport’s chief development officer.
“You’ll just see the wall. And you’ll wonder what’s going on because you won’t be able to see behind it,” Sandifer said. “But all you’ve got to do is go outside and look over the edge and get a good birds-eye view of our construction site.”
Contractors began tearing up the concrete tarmac outside the building last fall and are preparing to demolish a single-story section of the building — work that’s visible from the sidewalk at the north end of the passenger drop-off zone.
The expansion will create space for another island of ticket counters upstairs and two additional baggage carousels for international flights on the ground floor, where there’s only one now. With the addition of Aer Lingus flights from Dublin, Ireland, in April, RDU will have five flights arriving from Europe most days, as well as three others from Mexico and Panama.
“If you have three aircraft arriving at the same time, that could be 600-plus people, all trying to get their bag,” Sandifer said. “Very congested.”
The expansion will include a larger Customs and Border Protection area to screen incoming international passengers, with more space for lines and additional kiosks. RDU will be able to process about 1,000 international passengers per hour, compared to about 400 now, Sandifer said.
RDU plans to expand the main hall at Terminal 2 at both ends. When the north end is done sometime in 2029, contractors will then begin adding to the south end, including an additional Transportation Security Administration checkpoint.
About that time, the airport will also get serious about planning additional gates in Terminal 2, by adding wings to the existing concourses. The airport is planning for a doubling of passengers by 2050, to 30 million a year.
In addition to the curtain wall in the ticketing hall, the only other changes passengers will notice is the closing of two gates in Concourse C. The airport stopped using Gates C8 and C10 last year and removed the jet bridges. C10 will reopen when the expansion is finished, but C8 is gone for good.
This story was originally published January 9, 2026 at 12:12 PM with the headline "If you didn’t notice expansion work at RDU’s main terminal before, you will now."
