United loss at RFD may be rectified with Thursday air service announcement

Add comment March 19th, 2008

I guess Bob O’Brien was right, after all. O’Brien, executive director of Chicago Rockford International Airport, has been a skeptic on the value of courting “legacy” airlines to come here. They’re a fickle lot, as Northwest proved, and now United is proving by pulling out of the RFD-Denver route. I always wondered about United’s commitment, because the airline only used 49 seat jets here, instead of larger regional jets it uses on other routes. Perhaps they only came here because they thought another carrier was about to go into the market.

O’Brien believes that there’s a growing secondary market of airports like RFD, on the fringes of major metro areas that are growing toward the airports, which is what is happening with Chicagoland, moving toward RFD at a steady rate of growth.

The airlines serving these secondary markets increasingly are new ones, not bound to the old hub and spoke system. Allegiant fits the model, and by all accounts it is very successful on the routes it flies. One problem for Allegiant is that the MD-80s it flies aren’t very good on fuel economy. That didn’t matter a couple of years ago, when jet fuel was still reasonably priced. It matters now.

On Thursday, RFD will announce “air service developments” that include a new destination and another destination. I know that airport leaders have been concerned about United pulling out, and I also know they’ve been looking for other carriers to come in and fill the Denver route. I think Thursday’s announcement will have something to say about that.