Airport roundup

November 29th, 2007 at 04:41pm Thomas V. Bona

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.

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