N.C. airports begin flights on limited basis

Airports across North Carolina began to resume limited operations as the Federal Aviation Administration lifted a ban on air travel Thursday.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport reopened to passenger travel at 5 p.m. Thursday, but many airlines were still keeping their planes on the ground.

Southwest Airlines, for instance, did not plan to resume passenger flights anywhere in the nation until 11 a.m. today. Other airlines were open for business Thursday but flying only a fraction of their normal routes.

"On a normal day, system-wide, we'd run about 4,500 flights. Today will be in the low hundreds," US Airways spokesperson Rick Weintraub said Thursday afternoon, shortly after the airline resumed partial operations. "Tomorrow, we hope we will be building up on that significantly."

Weintraub hoped that flight operations could be back to normal "within a matter of days." But he pointed out that there was still a lot of confusion at airports nationwide. "Right now, it's a function of both the airports and the airlines and the FAA getting all the new procedures in place and getting comfortable with their operations and everything," he said.

RDU spokesperson Mirinda Kossoff said the first planes leaving the airport were those which were diverted there from other locations Tuesday. No passengers were aboard those flights.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, most of the departing flights Thursday from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport were also without passengers. The airport opened for business at about 9 a.m., but individual airlines did not fly any scheduled passenger routes before 6 p.m., said Haley Gentry, the airport's public affairs manager.

The FAA would not allow airports anywhere in the nation to reopen until they imposed stringent security regulations. These include an end to flight check-ins at the curbside or anywhere other than the ticket counter; a ban on unattended vehicles within 300 feet of airport terminals; more frequent, random passenger searches, including some physical searches; and a ban on all knives--even pocket knives--beyond security checkpoints.