Overall data released by the airport Friday show a total of 485,285 passengers flew in and out of CIRA last year, compared to 579,265 in 2011.
Indications are that airlines cut capacity far more than demand, so CIRA officials are pleased that F9 has upgraded 4-weekly BMI-DEN flights with the larger 319 replacing an E90 o Jan. 7. Also, DL itself puts a 319 on one BMI-ATL roundtrip eff. Mar. 2-3 in place of a DL Connection RJ (a CR9 I believe).
CIRA is also hoping to persuade an airline to use recently-awared $500,000 SCASD funds to start service to NYC or WAS area airports.
General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA) experienced a 13 percent increase in passengers during 2012.
During 2012, the Gen. Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport hit a new
record for passengers, with 580,530 people arriving or departing during the
year.
The increase is attributed to CIRA losing AirTran Airways on June 2 and DL resuming 3x daily PIA-ATL roundtrips on April 9. Certainly UA's doubling PIA-DEN on June 2 and G4 adding 2-weekly PIA-PGD on June 28 helped as well. Airport officials are hoping for Caribbean and Mexico flights.
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (4 months 2 days ago) and read 1570 times:
Quoting FlyPeoria (Thread starter): Also, DL itself puts a 319 on one BMI-ATL roundtrip eff. Mar. 2-3 in place of a DL Connection RJ (a CR9 I believe).
IADLHR From Italy, joined Apr 2005, 669 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (4 months 2 days ago) and read 1570 times:
I havennt been to PIA since before ground was broken on the new terminal. Before that I was going to PIA much too often on business. The old terminal was dreadful and the airline service was worse.
However, I do have business contacts back there and they are still hoping, and thinking, that maybe, perhaps, there will be nonstop service to the DC area. The bigger pipe dream is nonstop PIA-EWR. My contacts have told me that the new terminal is really nice.
I do think that the new Marriott hotel project downtown PIA has the potential to increase traffic through PIA.
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (4 months 2 days ago) and read 1555 times:
Quoting FlyPeoria (Thread starter): DL itself puts a 319 on one BMI-ATL roundtrip eff. Mar. 2-3 in place of a DL Connection RJ (a CR9 I believe).
Im sorry, I thought there was just a substitution on that day. I see it is a "permanent" replacement. This is consistent with DL's new strategy. BMI will probably be a 717 station for DL in 2 years.
FlyPeoria From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 377 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (4 months 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 1461 times:
Quoting bobloblaw (Reply 4): Im sorry, I thought there was just a substitution on that day. I see it is a "permanent" replacement. This is consistent with DL's new strategy. BMI will probably be a 717 station for DL in 2 years.
It would not surprise me if DL ran 3x daily 717 BMI-ATL, or maybe 2x 717 and a CR7. Kind of ironic if this happens because the lost FL birds will show up again in another airline's colors.
Quoting bobloblaw (Reply 5): ""“Our traffic isn’t down because there wasn’t enough of a market; it’s down because there aren’t enough seats to sell.”""
mmm....not really. BMI depended very much on poaching trafficfrom PIA, CMI and SPI, Now the relationship between PIA and BMI had been rebalanced.
Both are true to some extent, but DL may have underestimated demand after FL's pull out. And it is good to see F9 upgage its BMI-DEN route with bigger planes.
FlyPeoria From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 377 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (4 months 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 1444 times:
Quoting IADLHR (Reply 3): I havennt been to PIA since before ground was broken on the new terminal. Before that I was going to PIA much too often on business. The old terminal was dreadful and the airline service was worse.
However, I do have business contacts back there and they are still hoping, and thinking, that maybe, perhaps, there will be nonstop service to the DC area. The bigger pipe dream is nonstop PIA-EWR. My contacts have told me that the new terminal is really nice.
I do think that the new Marriott hotel project downtown PIA has the potential to increase traffic through PIA.
We shall see what we shall see.
PIA's new terminal is nice indeed. After a January 2011 open house in which I toured the new terminal, I made the mistake of walking into the old one. All I can say is, I was thoroughly embarrassed for Peoria
PIA-IAD might make more sense than BMI/CMI-IAD given Caterpillar-generated trips to DC. And even though BMI and CMI got SCASD funds for some east coast routes, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing came of it.
MLI717fan From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 239 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (4 months 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 1401 times:
Quoting FlyPeoria (Reply 7): PIA-IAD might make more sense than BMI/CMI-IAD given Caterpillar-generated trips to DC. And even though BMI and CMI got SCASD funds for some east coast routes, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing came of it.
Huge waste of money, IMO. In central Illinois, I think only PIA has a prayer of being able to support routes like that. Much larger stations like MLI, CID don't have that service. SPI... that's a joke. They even had to subsidize service to DFW. BMI maybe could pull it off if they had good connecting opportunities and the fares were low, which they probably wouldn't be. In today's market, a connection in ORD or DTW is the best thing you're going to get from any airport with under a million passengers per year.
The DL mainline flights are only available for a few months, then it goes back to 3x CR9/7/J. By the time everything shakes out, I think we can expect BMI to be down 30-35% due to FL's departure. PIA will certainly pick up some of the traffic, but the unfortunate thing is a lot of these people are just going to drive up or down I-55 and catch a flight at MDW, ORD, STL.
FWAERJ From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 3172 posts, RR: 1 Reply 11, posted (4 months 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1204 times:
Quoting bobloblaw (Reply 10):
I really wanted to see PIA-IAH but UA seems to be pulling down Midwest service to IAH. GRR is down from 2 to 1 flight and CID is losing all service.
Blame it on UA cutting back at IAH in response to the WN int'l ops at HOU and because they are rebuilding at DEN.
MLI717fan From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 239 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (4 months 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1172 times:
Quoting FlyPeoria (Reply 9): I checked Delta's online schedules and the 319 is there into September.
Oh wow, last time I checked, it was gone some time in July. At one point DL had it scheduled at 3x CRJ (yes- 50 seaters), apparently they decided that was a bad idea, or it was a mistake. A DL A319 holds 126 passengers (according to seatguru.com) which is approximately 2 DL Connection CR7s, so overall capacity should be similar to what it was last summer at BMI, with one fewer flight. When FL flew the route, DL was flying BMI-ATL with 5x daily CR7s, almost immediately after FL pulled out they dropped it to 4x CR7/9. DL is charging quite a premium on PIA-ATL compared to BMI-ATL.
Speaking of Low Fare Carriers, G4 average LF & total departing Passengers carried in Illinois airports through September 2012:
BMI: 86.67% 5,228 (Service began 5/2012)
MLI: 90.39% 45,973
PIA: 90.69% 54,318
RFD: 92.40% 60,997
*SPI & BLV did not yet have G4 service as of the report.
CIDFlyer From United States of America, joined Apr 2005, 1990 posts, RR: 3 Reply 13, posted (4 months 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1092 times:
Definitely a rebalancing after the FL pullout from BMI. Plus G4 has added PGD and DL brought ATL back to PIA so that helps, as well as they now have a beautiful sparkling new terminal. PIA/BMI reminds me alot of CID/MLI, there are similar parallels there. CID also has picked up alot of traffic since FL left MLI (CID gained F9 and that certainly was a boost as well as getting DL ATL flights back).
On the plus side for BMI its good that they somewhat replaced FL with F9 with their DEN/MCO flights and DL ramining strong with larger jets to ATL.
The one thing that puzzles me is that G4 serves PIA with PIE/PGD/LAS/AZA and serves BMI with SFB only, going up against F9 to MCO. Im surprised G4 doesnt just shift SFB back to PIA and focus on having one central Illinois station. Are there that many more people going from BMI to Orlando than there is from Peoria?
CIDFlyer From United States of America, joined Apr 2005, 1990 posts, RR: 3 Reply 14, posted (4 months 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1083 times:
Quoting bobloblaw (Reply 10): I really wanted to see PIA-IAH but UA seems to be pulling down Midwest service to IAH. GRR is down from 2 to 1 flight and CID is losing all service.
I was really hoping to see UA open IAH more up to the midwest as well. I was excited when they started IAH-CID and thought it would be a hit as UA is very strong here and also in cities like PIA/MLI etc and finally they were going to have a southern hub to utilize like DFW has with AA and ATL with DL as they have excellent ties with midwestern markets. But unfortunately thats not going to be the case as you pointed out UA seems to be retrenching from IAH at least in this region of the country. I dont think UA tried hard enough personally to make it work. DFW and ATL do gangbusters, its a mystery why IAH couldnt do the same.
"I was really hoping to see UA open IAH more up to the midwest as well. I was excited when they started IAH-CID and thought it would be a hit as UA is very strong here and also in cities like PIA/MLI etc and finally they were going to have a southern hub to utilize like DFW has with AA and ATL with DL as they have excellent ties with midwestern markets. But unfortunately thats not going to be the case as you pointed out UA seems to be retrenching from IAH at least in this region of the country. I dont think UA tried hard enough personally to make it work. DFW and ATL do gangbusters, its a mystery why IAH couldnt do the same."
I'm guessing that CID-IAH didn't work and other mid to upper Midwest-IAH service isn't building merely because of geography. Not sure what o and d number from this part of the country to Houston is but im guessing not enough to support mulitple fights to multiple smaller cities in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Minneasota, etc. Also Houston is not very effective as a connection point unless one is going to points in southern Texas or Mexico/central/south America, which again, probably isn't a heck of a lot of people. Not very efficient flying 2-3 hours straight south then generally northeast or northwest to get to domestic destinations. I'm sure Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, DFW, etc are ample places to connect through for this area.
FlyPeoria From United States of America, joined Oct 2005, 377 posts, RR: 0 Reply 16, posted (4 months 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 887 times:
Quoting CIDFlyer (Reply 13): The one thing that puzzles me is that G4 serves PIA with PIE/PGD/LAS/AZA and serves BMI with SFB only, going up against F9 to MCO. Im surprised G4 doesnt just shift SFB back to PIA and focus on having one central Illinois station. Are there that many more people going from BMI to Orlando than there is from Peoria?
Me too. Had G4 known F9 was going to start 3-weekly BMI-MCO, they might well have resumed PIA-SFB instead (3rd time's the charm, right?). Thing is, when G4 first flew PIA-SFB in 2005, there were four weekly roundtrips (AirTran had resumed BMI-MCO in 2004, IIRC). When service returned in 2007-2008, there were two roundtrips a week.
Of course, G4 started PIA-PGD on June 28 and SPI-PGD on November 6. Both are twice-weekly for the most part.
I see from MLI717's post that G4's CIRA load factor is below 90%.Obviously, it's because of F9's MCO flights. IMHO, G4 should consider shifting its SFB flights to PIA.
BMI727 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 14315 posts, RR: 26 Reply 17, posted (4 months 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 875 times:
Quoting FlyPeoria (Thread starter): Bloomington-Normal, IL's Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA) saw a 16 percent drop in traffic during 2012:
That's better than I would expect them to do with the AirTran pullout.
Quoting bobloblaw (Reply 4): BMI will probably be a 717 station for DL in 2 years.
I'd put money on that.
Quoting MLI717fan (Reply 8): Huge waste of money, IMO. In central Illinois, I think only PIA has a prayer of being able to support routes like that.
I don't think the east coast routes will ever go anywhere in the foreseeable future. Too small of a market and other traffic can connect too easily elsewhere.
Why do Aerospace Engineering students have to turn things in on time?
Back in the 70's CMI had a non-stop to DCA with OZ. Maybe BMI could do the same?
Minor correction, it was PIA-CMI-IAD-LGA with IAD later replaced by BWI. Flew the PIA-CMI-IAD section many times to visit relatives in Northern Virginia.
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (4 months 1 day ago) and read 683 times:
Quoting OzarkD9S (Reply 20): Minor correction, it was PIA-CMI-IAD-LGA with IAD later replaced by BWI. Flew the PIA-CMI-IAD section many times to visit relatives in Northern Virginia.
Was DCA ever a stop.
I actually think the routing was:
DEN-SUX-PIA-CMI-IAD-LGA
bobloblaw From United States of America, joined Jan 2012, 1360 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (4 months 23 hours ago) and read 678 times:
IAD must have been the airport new entrants to the DC area had to serve during regulation. Southern Airways also flew IAD-LGA on a VPS-DHN-CGS-IAD-LGA routing with DC-9-10.
I actually think the routing was:
DEN-SUX-PIA-CMI-IAD-LGA
Routings changed somewhat during those years these flights were operated (1969-1981). Flight itineraries at the start of Ozark's East Coast service (April 27, 1969) were:
Sometime later, probably in 1971, nonstop PIA-LGA was gone with IAD added as a stop on all flights (though PIA had one eastbound-only nonstop to IAD. Ozark's October 31, 1971 timetable shows:
Not sure when (possibly after the 1973 strike), but East Coast service was cut to two roundtrips. Ozark's July 1, 1974 timetable also shows some route simplification:
Ozark's September 1, 1975 timetable shows LGA-IAD-CMI-PIA-SUX-DEN and LGA-IAD-CMI-PIA-SPI roundtrips. Schedules stayed this way until Ozark's 1979 strike. Effective November 15, 1979, East Coast schedules serving central Illinois looked like this:
On April 27, 1980, ALO replaced SUX. A week later, Ozark was shutdown by another strike. By July 1, 1980 Ozark had restored full service and Central Illinois' East Coast offerings expanded.
Routings stayed the same until suspended in August 1981 as a consequence of the PATCO strike. Ozark did operate PIA-STL-LGA in both directions between December 1, 1981 and July 31, 1982.
type-rated From United States of America, joined Sep 1999, 4343 posts, RR: 20 Reply 24, posted (4 months 20 hours ago) and read 555 times:
Thanks for the correction. I was in the CMI terminal when I saw the flight on the departure board. I noticed that CMI had a mix of DC-9's and FH-227's going in there.
Fly North Central Airlines..The route of the Northliners!
25 kbmiflyer: Any word on how the PIA-ATL flights are doing. I am a little surprised to still see them as CR2's, thought they might get at least one up to a CR7. BM
26 FlyPeoria: The Peoria article says ATL became the No. 5 destination from PIA in 2012 even though it had operated for slightly less than nine months of the year.
27 bobloblaw: Does anyone know how many international passengers used RFD in 2012? I know PIA wants to copy RDF, but Im skeptical. RFD is a much larger catchment ar
28 FlyPeoria: Peoria is more affluent than Rockford, and could draw from the central Illinois region. I'd say Caterpillar employees alone could support winter seas
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