It is located in unincorporated Wake County, but is surrounded by the city of Raleigh to the north and east, and the towns of Cary and Morrisville to the south.

The main catchment area is central & eastern North Carolina, and southern Virginia.

It was quickly outgrown, and in 1939 the North Carolina General Assembly chartered the Raleigh–Durham Aeronautical Authority to build and operate a larger airport between Raleigh and Durham.

This was promoted by Eastern Air Lines, led by then chairman Eddie Rickenbacker, who wanted to make RDU a stop on the airline's New York–Miami route.

The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 36 departures a day: twenty Eastern, eight Capital and eight Piedmont.

In the 1970s, the last decade before airline deregulation, Piedmont connected RDU to Charlotte, Greensboro, New Bern, Norfolk, Richmond, Rocky Mount, Washington, Wilmington and Winston-Salem.

[18] American retained a daily nonstop flight to London, which continued to operate until the COVID-19 pandemic and resumed in 2022.

[23] In 1995, Midway had flights to Boston, Hartford, Long Island, Newark, Newburgh, New York, Philadelphia and Washington in the Northeast, and to Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach in Florida.

[24] American subleased its gates at RDU to Midway in order to repay $113 million in American-guaranteed bonds that had been used to construct the hub facilities.

[25] Midway suspended service for some time after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and ceased operations in 2002, filing for bankruptcy in 2003.

In the first few months of the year, passenger numbers stabilized at RDU, ending the decrease the airport experienced in 2008 and 2009.

[28] Growth was flat compared to the same period a year before, but these signs were positive indicating that the decline was over.

[30] Endeavor Air, a regional airline for Delta, plan to open a new crew base in the summer of 2025, with expected 130 to 170 employees.

[33] In June 2023, the Airport Authority Board approved an agreement to advance the planning process for terminal 1 expansion to allow for future growth as RDU reached new passenger traffic records and destinations served.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency