Craig was right, the sky is the limit on new RFD destinations
February 26th, 2009 at 04:39pm Thomas V. Bona
As Register Star political editor Chuck Sweeny first reported, the potential new destinations out of Chicago Rockford International Airport will be via a new-to-Rockford airline.
Frequent reader Craig Knauss noted Chuck’s comments and noted that means that the list of possible destinations is wider than I’ve been working with. Forgive me for my lack of imagination - as I told Bob O’Brien, it’s not that I doubt RFD’s ability to attract a new airline, it’s that I can’t see many airlines considering such a move right now. Looks like I’m wrong.
Here are additional details I learned from Bob today:
-  Obligatory comment he makes whenever we have this type of conversation - “I’m always cautiously optimistic. I would hate to disappoint the community if for some reason we couldn’t deliver.”
- The airline he’s talking to would add one or two destinations.
- Bob said the destinations would elicit a “wow” from the community. These aren’t small-time destinations.
- “It’s not Southwest but Southwest could serve these places.” I take that to mean these are either cities in regions Southwest likes to serve, or secondary airports in big metro areas. Or he’s just underscoring the previous point that they’re quality destinations.
- They’re not in Florida. In fact, “They are not within hundreds of miles of any existing destination we have.”
- The announcement could come in the first two weeks of March. Flights would start before June 21.
- Bob recently started talking to a second new airline about a third potential destination.
I know, this is bordering on 20 questions (”Is it bigger than a breadbox? Is it bigger than Duluth?”), but I hope those details help. More as I get them.
After talking to Bob, here are my new “what could it be?” ideas:
- One of the New York secondary airports - Islip, Stewart or Westchester County. Oh please let it be one of those. I have two trips to NYC coming up.
- A Texas destination, possibly near the Mexican border.
- Baltimore
- New Orleans
- Buffalo/Niagara - because, dangit, I’m not giving up my first guess.
But, really, the door seems wide open. I’m just glad that, potentially, it’s a destination I’m likely to fly to … what do you folks think?
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12 Comments Add your own
1. den den | February 26th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee say Southwest. still hearing rumors of privatizing Midway. we all know that means fees WILL go up.
2. Ben | February 26th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Glad to see some signs of life despite the recession. I’ll still bet on Baltimore and Denver. As Mike DeDoncker used to say (maybe he still does) that’s a data-free observation.
3. G. Kent | February 26th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Who cares? In case you haven’t noticed, we live 75 minutes from one of the largest airports in the world. There are probably people in Chicagoland who live farther from ORD than we do.
Bob O’Brien is just your typical bureaucrat trying to justify his government job.
4. Thomas V. Bona | February 26th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
den den - sorry, as I said above, it’s not Southwest this time.
5. Thomas V. Bona | February 26th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Ben - sorry, forgot to note that it’s NOT a destination we’ve had recently. So no Denver. But Baltimore’s a good one to hope for,
6. bob trojan | February 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I\’m, all for Westchester (HPN) The gateway to the East Coast!
7. Thomas V. Bona | February 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
G. Kent - Well, in 2008, 200,000 people cared, and it would have been more if high fuel prices and the recession hadn’t hit. Obviously, there’s a market for a smaller, “hassle free” alternative to O’Hare.
RFD is never going to be ORD II. But the country is filled with successful secondary airports … and as long as Chicagoland keeps growing to the northwest, this becomes a good place for one.
It doesn’t matter how major ORD is. In 2007 - the last data available from the FCC - O’Hare had more than 72 percent of the passengers in Chicagoland. Rockford had 0.2 percent. If RFD could just bump that up to 1 percent, it would have a million passengers, almost a top 100 airport in the country.
Before you scoff at that, look at the NYC and LA areas. In NY, the big three dominate with 95 percent of passengers. But even the smallest airport - Stewart, 60 miles north of the city - drew just under 1 percent of NY area traffic. That gave it 1 million passengers.
In LA, which has fewer passengers than the Chicago area, there are five airports with more than 2 million passengers.
Also, Bob may be a government official … but less of his salary than you think comes from tax money. Most airport revenue is cargo fees and real estate. A tiny fraction comes from passenger service. He could probably justify his job on cargo business alone. But the board of commissioners sees a desire to push passenger service, so that’s a priority.
Also, Bob’s contract has an extensive bonus structure tied to aggressive growth. Because RFD is not growing fast enough under the contract, he effectively loses money. So there’s an inventive for him for the airport to grow … not just to talk about it.
8. Craig Knauss | February 26th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I’m not used to seeing my name in print, except for the WANTED posters. So it will take a while for the head swelling to go down. My guess would have been Frontier to Denver, but that’s been effectively ruled out. So, how about JetBlue to New Yawwwk and maybe Bahston? (Which would work well with their EMB 190s.) That’s more than a few hundred miles from Florida. I don’t think US Air would be ready to come to RFD just yet. Continental might, with service to Cleveland and Newark.
9. rfdbusinessman | February 27th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I am completely clueless on this one but excited about the possibilites. Anyone aware of any startup airlines out there or any new public charter airlines ? If it would be JetBlue going east, that would be huge news to say the least.
RFD is going to play a MAJOR role in economic development for Rockford and the entire regional area going forward. The news on the other economic development possibilites this week (solar panel manufacturer and the aerospace development center are good too.
10. Gary Rippentrop Sr. | February 27th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I salute the work that has been done trying to bring flights to Rockford. My wife and I have used every chance we get to fly to Arizona. Origionally we had to use connecting flights and now the best service we have ever had,ALLEGIANT. We use it 5 or 6 times a year and tell everyone about them. We are still amaized at the amount of people that still do not know about the opportunitys from Rockford. Continue the good work and thanks again.
11. Thomas V. Bona | February 27th, 2009 at 8:27 am
rfdbusinessman - I’ve been following public charter filings and nothing with RFD has come up. but there’s still time for them to do so before any announcement.
As for startups, those are hard to track because they tend to stay way below the radar until announcing something. I’m aware of one startup that’s got Rockford as a long-term possibility, but don’t think it’s them in this case.
My gut says it’s an existing, but under the radar airline … but like you I’m totally clueless about it.
As much as I’d love it to be JetBlue, I kind doubt it’s them. They’d be about as big as Southwest coming here … so Bob’s comments about it not being Southwest but cities Southwest could serve make me think it’s a smaller airline looking to do something big.
12. G. Kent | February 27th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Let’s think about this. O’Brien pays the airliners to come to Rockford (Northwest, United, etc.) Then he pays the passengers to get on the airplanes (MilesAhead). Sometimes he even pays people to go to his press conferences. And let’s not forget his botched idea of running his own airline (losing hundreds of thousands in the bargain).
Yeah, he’s got 200,000 pax coming through RFD. But the numbers aren’t real because they’re heavily subsidized by OUR money.
And if his salary is partly based on pax numbers, AND he’s spending airport dollars to boost those numbers (which he is), sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
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