RDU is close to my home airport and I go in there a lot. They are very
friendly. Of course one of my airpark neighbors is a controller there too.

I've attended various meetings where RDU issues have been covered and
here's how I understand it:

When an AA hub, RDU was on track for a Class B. More ATC pay, perhaps
prestige, and no need to solicit more traffic (or friends?). When the
hub collapsed, they slipped below the traffic threshold required for
Class B.

Apparently they've been very close over the years because Class B
hearings and planning sessions and such have been held repeatedly, but
they seem to keep coming up short of whatever the criteria is.

I remember an ATC rep in one of the meetings half joking about how they
welcome every operation in order to help them make the numbers.

So RDU remains a Class C and can't seem to make the big time from an ATC
perspective. But there are new facilities all over the place. New
parking, new ramps, new hangars,the FBOs seem successful and flush, big
iron GA floods the ramp, and *visiting* spam can flyers benefit from it
all. A GREAT place to fly into for whatever. Yaaay!

xyzzy wrote:
When RDU was an AA hub, they didn't want local pilots coming in to do
practice stuff. After AA pulled out, RDU controllers came to local
flying club meetings and invited them come on over and practice as much
as they want.

The above happened before I started flying. My only experience with RDU
is in the post-AA era and they have been nothing but friendly and
helpful IMO.