Springfield, Bloomington airports get federal grants, Peoria does not

Add comment September 9th, 2008

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced its 2008 Small Community Air Service Development grant awards yesterday. Three Illinois airports - Springfield, Bloomington and Peoria - applied for grants. The first two got theirs.

Springfield got the largest grant in the country - $750,000 of the $6.85 million in grants awarded, according to the DOT’s filing (I haven’t found an online announcement to link to, sorry).The grant is for a revenue guarantee for Northwest to restart service to Memphis, which last flew in 2002.

Bloomington  got $225,000, less than half the $500,000 the airport asked for, toward attracting American Airlines service to Dallas/Fort Worth, Continental Airlines Service to Houston or something similar. Bloomington has to accept the lesser amount before officially getting the grant. The community said it would match the grant with $725,000 in local funds, but that may have been predicated on getting the full grant. The airport wants to spend $1 million on a revenue guarantee to whatever airline it can land.

Peoria applied, unsuccessfully, for $800,000 to setting up regionaljet flights to a new destination hub. No airlines or destinations were identied, as it appears the airport was looking to study the idea and find a willing partner.

Rockford, which was unsuccessful in getting a grant last year, did not apply this year.