Archive for November, 2007
November 29th, 2007
This morning, according to AAA’s Fuelgaugereport.com, national diesel prices were the highest on record at about $3.50 a gallon. Same with Illinois ($3.56) and Rockford ($3.55). I guess the “good news” is our prices - both diesel and gasoline - aren’t on top for the state (Thanks, Chicago):
Chicago - $3.66
Rockford - $3.55
Quad Cities - $3.54
Bloomington - $3.49
Champaign - $3.48
The state and national diesel prices went up last night even as gas prices remained flat or went down. I’m charting prices day to day, and comparing them with prices a month and year ago. Keep watching for updates.
November 29th, 2007
Some random updates related to Chicago Rockford International Airport:
- Looks like the U.S. Navy Blue Angels aren’t making a return engagement at our AirFest. They’re expected to perform in Peoria next year and it wouldn’t make sense for them to plan two shows so close together, geographically. This isn’t a surprise: Rockford airport officials have said demonstration teams don’t tend to visit the same shows in consecutive years. We’ll likely hear which military team or teams will perform here next year during or after the International Council of AirShows in Las Vegas Dec. 10-13. Stay tunes.
- Allegiant Air recently made an interesting presentation to investors. It’s projecting enough growth to need to add 6 to 8 planes a year for the foreseeable future (it’ll have 34 by the end of the year.) Much of that growth will be in “connecting the dots” - linking its small cities to its five major destinations - or adding more small cities. That won’t do Rockford any good, because we already have connections to those destinations. But there were a few other growth possibilities mentioned. One is adding service to Reno, Nev., or Palm Springs, Calif., from some cities that now have Las Vegas service. Another would be to add some other “niche” destinations that only a few cities would get service too. Finally, Allegiant continues to say it expects to add one more major U.S. destination and service to Mexico and/or the Caribbean sometime, and you can bet RFD will lobby for any of those routes.
November 27th, 2007
Quietly, Chicago/Rockford International Airport has become Chicago Rockford International Airport. That’s right, no slash. Airport officials say they just thought it looked better and stopped using the slash. So, now we won’t either.
I wrote earlier this year about the trend of airports changing their names to include a large nearby city as a marketing effort. Turns out, those airports can’t agree on punctuation either.
We have:
So, it’s not just us.
November 16th, 2007
This is just weird. Usually, Chicago has the highest gas prices in the state, with Rockford second or even lower. But recently, with barrels of oil nearing $100, Rockford has pulled ahead of Chicago. As of this morning, the average gallon of regular unleaded was $3.25 versus $3.20 in Chicago, according to AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com.
Angry motorists will be quick to say it’s “gouging” but state officials, the Better Business Bureau and industry experts have all told me there’s no evidence of that. Anyway, gouging is only a term that legally comes into play during a disaster, such as a hurricane.
I talked to Bill Fleischli, executive vice president of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association/Illinois Association of Convenience Stores today. He said the reason Chicago prices haven’t gone up as much as ours is because Chicago is dominated by gas stations owned by the big oil companies, which can easily withstand the jump in wholesale costs. Basically, he said, they don’t raise prices as much and count on a large volume of customers buying other stuff to make their profit.
Meanwhile, Rockford has almost all independent gas stations, and they’re already fighting thin margins and can’t afford to keep prices down. Fleischli said part of the reason Rockford is so much higher than Downstate gas stations is because it’s a tougher, tighter market.
As always, it could be worse - Illinois on average has the 13th highest gas prices in the nation. But if you’re anywhere else in Illinois (or in Wisconsin, for that matter), go ahead and fill up.
November 15th, 2007
Allegiant Air is celebrating the one-year anniversary of service to Clearwater/St. Petersburg, Fla. with $15 one-way fares from Florida to Rockford and other markets available until 8 p.m. Central time today.
Travel must be by Feb. 6. Right now, the discounted tickets are available to Rockford for Nov. 23, Nov. 30, Dec. 2, Dec. 5, Dec. 9, Dec. 14, Dec. 16, Jan. 9, Jan. 11, Jan. 16, Jan. 18, Jan. 23, Jan. 25, Jan. 30, Feb. 1, Feb. 3 and Feb. 6.
The $15 is s a base fare and doesn’t include taxes and government fees, a possible $8.50 convenience fee when booked online or a $5 surcharge when booking by phone at 702-505-8888. But all those charges all apply to the non-sale tickets also, which normally start at $69 to $114 each way. So it’s a good deal regardless.
Of course, you have to pay full price to get from Rockford to St. Pete.
The route, which gets travelers to the Tampa Bay area, has been pretty good for Rockford. More than 25,000 passengers have flown on the route this year. While it’s the least-busy regular route out of Rockford, planes have generally been around 85 percent full, which is above the industry average.
November 14th, 2007
As I suspected, Allegiant Air didn’t cut flights between Las Vegas and Rockford or Peoria because they are established routes with good passenger numbers and profitability, according to spokeswoman Tyri Squyres. The airports that lost Vegas service are generally new markets (poor Marion, Illinois, didn’t even get its first flight before service was canceled). Because those were new routes, they weren’t yet very profitable as passengers were still learning about them, Squyres explained. With gas prices so high, it was the less profitable long-haul trips that were axed.
Even if gas prices stay high, Squyes said Rockford is probably safe. “We’re pretty confident that this is the big cut that we’ll make,” she said. “You may see us play with our schedule a bit. You’re not going to lose a whole destination, it may be we’ll pull back a few flights.”
Allegiant has already done this in Rockford before, cutting service to St. Petersburg, Fla., for 10 weeks this fall and reducing flights to Orlando-Sanford, Fla., due to low seasonal demand. But it’s also brought those flights back and then some for the busy winter and spring. While Allegiant offers 12 weekly flights to and from Rockford through mid-December, it plans 16 flights a week in late December, 17 a week in February and a record 19 a week in March.
By my calculations, in March, Rockford would have the most weekly flights of any of Allegiant’s non-destination airports. So RFD has that going for it.
Things also look good for Peoria, which could probably benefit from the cutting of service in Springfield. It’ll increase to 17 flights a week in March.
November 14th, 2007
Spoke with Judy Tull, CEO of Myrtle Beach Direct Air, this morning about the possibility of flights from Rockford to Myrtle Beach. While the airline was hoping for a federal grant to fund the service, which it didn’t get, Tull said it’s still possible there could be flights as early as next March. It depends on whether the carrier can fit the route in its schedule with the airplanes it has now - the airline recently announced service out of Columbus, Ohio, to go with its service through Buffalo/Niagara Falls, NY; Newark, NJ; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Pittsburgh, Penn.; and Gulfport, Miss. Given the tenuousness of such service “possibilities” (Remember Festival Airlines?) I wouldn’t make plans but would remain hopeful that Myrtle Beach service would return to Rockford sometime.
Speaking of “possibilities”, I’m still checking on Kenny Tours’s hope to start service between Rockford and Shannon, Ireland. I just learned from the U.S. Department of Transportation that the route hasn’t yet gotten DOT approval, but the process is pretty quick. It’s likely that Kenny is still trying to seal a deal with an airline to operate the flights. Hopefully we’ll have more later today at BusinessRockford.com.
November 13th, 2007
According to the old joke, there are only two seasons in Illinois - winter and construction. Illinois Tollway officials repeated that joke to me today, and noted that they’re trying to make the construction season longer and longer. You may notice that crews are out later than they’ve been.
Local work should wrap up by Thanksgiving, when crews will remove the barrels on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway between Newburg and Rockton roads. The highway will revert back to its normal setup - two lanes in each direction, no driving on the shoulder.
But in the spring, the tollway is going to be particularly busy. Besides the widening project between Newburg and Rockton roads - which will send traffic onto the shoulders and include some closures - crews will also start rebuilding the Cherry Valley interchange (bye bye toll plaza!). Both projects will take two years and will be a testament to the idea of “no pain, no gain.”
Read more about upcoming projects at BusinessRockford.com on Nov. 25. Also, we’ll have a story about Thanksgiving traffic and gas price projections on Nov. 20.
November 10th, 2007
Allegiant Air announced yesterday it’s cutting service from Las Vegas to six airports, including Springfield, Champaign and Marion, because of high fuel prices. An Allegiant spokeswoman said the passenger levels were fine but the long-distance trips cost too much with oil prices hitting close to $100 a barrel.
Rockford service remains, perhaps saved by the fact that planes are going out around 90 percent of capacity. Allegiant now flies four times a week between Rockford and Las Vegas, but that is scheduled to increase to five times a week in February and six times a week during the peak travel times of March and April.
Even with the cuts, Allegiant still has several Las Vegas routes that are as long or longer than its Rockford route, so there’s no reason to believe we’re next. Still, I’ll be checking in with RFD and Allegiant officials to get more word. And it’s never a good sign when fuel costs force airlines to cut service.
November 8th, 2007
Just got back from a fun event - a holiday roast of Chicago/Rockford International Airport Executive Director Bob O’Brien, hosted by theEpilepsy Foundation of North/Central Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. This was a fundraiser for the group and, like its signature mud volleyball fundraiser, it was a blast.
O’Brien got (good-naturedly) skewered for his tireless promotion of the airport, his changing of the airport’s name, his gift of gab and personality quirks. Some of the roasters got roasted too.
A few of the best jokes of the night:
- Roastmaster Mike Dunn, chairman of the Greater Rockford Airport Authority board - “How long is it going to be that Bob will sit still, to stay there while there’s a microphone six feet away? … Putting Bob that close to a mic and not letting him talk is like being waterboarded down in Gitmo.”
- Amy Ott, the airport’s deputy director for finance and administration, on why Bob came to Rockford - “He heard Rockford had plenty of parking, free parking. He is quite cheap.”
- Nick Ancona, former board, on interviewing candidates before Bob got the job five years ago - “We had a lot of people apply for the job. Why wouldn’t they? There’s nothing to do. They could come here to retire.”
- Dunn, on Mayor Larry Morrissey - “Larry really likes appearing with Bob because every time Larry appears next to Bob, no one is going to accuse Larry of giving a long speech.”
- Morrissey, in turned, asked how many airport employees it took to screw in a lightbulb. Two, one to do it and “one airport board chairman to take credit for it.”
- Morrissey also joked about how the name “Chicago/Rockford International Airport” has tricked foreign delegations into visiting Rockford. “It’s working. However, after a couple days, they finally figure out the Amerock Building is not the Sears Tower and the Rock River isn’t Lake Michigan.”
- Register Star columnist Chuck Sweeny - “You can fly anywhere in the U.S. from Rockford, provided you’re willing to fly at 3 a.m. in a Plexiglass container.”
- Sweeny also, in a riff on O’Brien’s constant promotion, mimicked a speech by the director promoting the airport as having “the nation’s 187th fastest growing infield grass.” He also “announced” the start of direct flights to Chechnya on Air Chechnya to go with flights to Budapest on Air Hungary and “Festival Airlines flying the phantom jet.”
- Dunn on roaster and WREX-TV anchor Eric Wilson - “I called out to WREX and I asked John Chadwick if we could get the cute anchor. John’s got a sick sense of humor, so he sent Eric.”
- Wilson referred to short-lived TransMeridian Airlines as “Temporarily Mismanaged Airlines.” He added, “We have actually done interviews with Bob that have lasted longer than the tenure of Hooters Air. … And what about Festival Airlines? I don’t have a joke, what about Festival Airlines?”
- Scott Christiansen, chairman of the Winnebago County Board - “While Bob has no enemies, he’s disliked by most of his friends.”
There were other jokes I can’t print here on a family Web site, but a good time was had by all. Here’s <a href=”http://www.rrstar.com/multimedia/x481180940″>a video of the event</a>.
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