RFD says new destinations expected “very soon”
February 25th, 2009 at 10:39am Thomas V. Bona
Chicago Rockford International Airport Executive Director Bob O’Brien said today that the airport’s “Guess2Win” promotion is “quickly wrapping up as an announcement revealing the two new destinations is expected very soon.”
In a release today, he also outlined another 15 cities that are NOT the new destinations, based on “unique” guesses in the contest. This is in addition to the 15 he listed last week. This round is more realistic … no moon shots:
Bellingham, Wash.; Charlotte, N.C.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Duluth, Minn.; Fargo, N.D.; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Key West, Fla.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Paris, France; Raleigh, N.C.; Reno, Nev.; San Diego, Calif.; Savannah, Ga.; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Toronto, Ontario.
Some good guesses here - Bellingham, Colorado Springs and San Diego are Allegiant cities that could someday work from RFD … but not yet. Savannah has been eyed by Allegiant as a long-term place to expand. Kalamazoo is not an option, but it is a Direct Air city, so people are paying attention….
Bob has also confirmed to me that it’s NOT LAX, Allegiant’s new destination.
I still think one of them is Niagara Falls, but I admit to being stumped, and my research is getting me nowhere. I think other possible candidates are Newark, N.J. (a Direct Air city), any Carnival Cruise Lines port (New Orleans, New York, Norfolk and Melbourne, Fla., have been previously mentioned) and anywhere AeroMexico or Aple Vacations fly to.
Or, you know, something totally different.
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4 Comments Add your own
1. Nicky | February 25th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
So you’re saying that Sandusky is still a possibility……..
2. Craig Knauss | February 25th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Thomas, I’m curious that elsewhere in the RRStar blogs (I’m not saying where) the following sentences appear:
“…guess the new destinations of a new passenger carrier that is coming soon to the airport.”
“…hopeful the new airline will announce its destinations in the next couple of weeks….”
Hmmmm. It seems that a lot of people, aka conventional wisdom, were assuming the new destinations would be on Allegiant, Direct Air, or Mexicana/Apple. This throws a whole new element into the discussion. Now the sky’s literally the limit. I hope it would be someone like Jet Blue, Frontier, AirTran, or maybe Delta Express, for example. RFD needs some form of daily service to lure back the business travelers.
3. Craig Knauss | February 25th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Whoops. I mean AeroMexico/Apple. Sorry about that.
4. Thomas V. Bona | February 26th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Craig,
Oh it *could* be a completely new carrier, and that would be great. And I’ll have to follow up with Bob on those comments to see if it’s for sure a new airline. I just think that in this climate, at this moment, it’s more likely to be an airline already here in some form.
But I’ve also said multiple times that I have no clue and that I’m pretty stumped. So the sky is, to an extent, the limit. It’s just not to the Moon.
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