Original NC Route Map

When Delta began service on June 15, 1970, people came to the airport in their best Sunday clothes –men wore suits with ties and women donned their best dresses. The RDU operation was a two-bedroom house trailer parked on the ramp, complete with kitchen and laundry room. The station manager was Fred West and his office was the master bedroom.  We used the second bedroom for storage, and the living room for operations and load planning. Back then, load planning was done manually using large volumes of black binders and an adding machine. The trailer was always noisy with teletype machines clacking-out weather and ops information like flight plans – which had to be called-in or “filed” by the load planner – to support our six daily flights to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, Miami and Atlanta routes.

Our ticket counter – banished to the concourse area due to a lack of space in the terminal – was equipped with two high-tech IBM model 1977 “computers” that looked just like electric typewriters.  You typed in an entry and then stood back and waited for the typewriter to respond, always a mystery to passengers waiting for their tickets.  Ticket agents thumbed through thousands of pages in the OAG to look up flight schedules, and manually computed fares using a fares tariff.  There was no baggage conveyor; bags were slid down a short wood & aluminum shoot into the bag room.

There were no security checks, so ticket counter to gate took about 30 seconds. Customers presented their ticket, nicely packaged in a ticket jacket to the gate agent who used a rubber stamp and ink pad to imprint the flight number, date and city pair, and pulled “sticky tabs” from a seating chart, locking-in each customer’s assigned seat.  In 1970, not only was smoking allowed on airplanes there were no designated areas.

After a hard day’s work employees frequently gathered at the terminal’s “Dobbs House” restaurant where a cup of coffee and a slice of their famous strawberry pie was just the ticket.

Flash forward 40 years to today at RDU and Delta has a state-of-the-art operation, brand new ticket counter space with self-service kiosks for customers and an airport experience that rivals some of the best airports in America. Last December we even opened our newest Delta Sky Club with 4,000 square feet of space and provides members and their guests with complimentary Wi-Fi, beverages and snacks, personalized flight assistance, a full-service bar and satellite TV.

Congratulations RDU on a great, first 40 years…

Jim L.

1970 RDU ramp agent