Posted by Judy Burrell.  Raleigh Durham International Airport (RDU) has opened its long awaited Terminal 2 which replaces Terminal C.  It will make flying less or an arduous ordeal.  Terminal 2 offers plenty of entertainment: Twenty-six shops and restaurants, including 42nd Street Oyster Bar, Carolina Ale House, A Southern Season, Brooks Brothers and Apple iPod.

In the age of post-9/11, heavy airport security, Terminal 2 was designed to move passengers quickly and safely between gates and planes.Architecturally, it's designed for an open feeling, too. Its open interior combines wood trusses with steel and glass walls.

Ticketing kiosks will allow passengers to check in for any airline at a single location. Beneath passenger areas, a state-of-the-art baggage sorting and handling system processes and screens up to 1,600 pieces of luggage an hour.

Passengers will go through a new no-touch security checkpoint that is an alternative to the familiar pat-down – but also is eschewed by many airports for privacy concerns. The $177,000 Whole Body Imager projects radio beams over the surface of a person's body and displays a three-dimensional image of the body, without clothing, on a remote monitor.

Terminal 2 replaces the red-roofed Terminal C, which was built as a hub for American Airlines in 1987 and demolished as its replacement was built.

Blue-walled Terminal A has been renamed Terminal 1, bringing RDU's naming practices in line with other airports. RDU passengers had often been confused by the lack of a Terminal B, which disappeared in the early 1990s when it became an extension of Terminal A.

Terminal 2 will make traveling in and out of RDU a much better experience.