June 18th, 2009
Just back from vacation in New York, where gas prices are even higher. The good news is that the gap between Rockford and the national average has dropped 10 cents in the past week. The bad news is that oil is still above $70 a barrel, with little hope that it’ll fall below that.
Here are the prices from this morning (courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):
Gasoline: Rockford dropped almost a cent to $2.84 a gallon today and more than five cents in the past week. We’re second in the state and 47th of the nation’s 280 metro areas, so at least we’re not quite so far up there. Chicago remains ahead of us at $2.90. The Illinois average remained at $2.83 a gallon, down two cents in the past week. The national average rose almost a cent to $2.69 a gallon, up five cents in the past week. Illinois has the sixth-highest gas prices in the nation, including the District of Columbia
Diesel: Rockford rose slightly to $2.66 a gallon, an eight-cent increase in the past week. We have the third-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average rose a cent to $2.67, a five-cent increase in the past week. The national average rose a cent to $2.61, a seven-cent increase in the past week. Illinois is tied with the 13th-highest diesel prices in the country, including the District of Columbia
June 18th, 2009
Two more day trips have been sold out at Chicago Rockford International Airport - Niagara Falls and Mackinac Island. More trips could be announced soon.
So with the success of the day trip program last year and this year, I’m interested - who are taking these flights? Have you gone on more than one? If so, what have you done there? If not, what do you plan to do? And where would you like to see RFD fly next for a day trip or two-day trip?
June 18th, 2009
(I wrote this Friday night from the Milwaukee airport terminal, but the wifi conked out before I posted. I opted not to pay for the onboard wifi on AirTran, and when I got to my vacation destination I decided to focus on overeating and buying too many books and CDs than posting. Now that I’m back in the office, here’s what I wrote then):
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Greetings from the Milwaukee airport, where I’m sitting in the midst of a nearly two-hour delay waiting for my flight to NYC. Seeme like the whole northeast is screwed up. Glad I hustled to get here.
You may recall I scheduled this trip to take advantage of RFD’s new flights to Newark. That was before AirAzul became JetAmerica became AWOL. Luckily, my wife and I had enough AirTran credits to get one leg of our trip free. It just meant that nstead of leaving work at 5 pm and heading down to RFD, I had to leave a couple of hours earlier. And pay for parking.
That said, I love MKE. It’s probably my favorite airport (BWI is the other contender), with a nice mix of convenience, good fares and destinations I want to get to. It’s also a pretty nice airport, with good concessions. My wife and I had the Wisconsin cheese panini sandwich at Mitchell’s Cafe - above average non-chain airport food - and I tried a decent Cream City Pale Ale from Lakefront Brewery. I followed it with a good coffee from Milwaukee’s own Alterra, which replaced a Starbucks kiosk. Nice to have local flavors at an airport (Is this a trend? Are they becoming like ballparks in that regard?)
So even though I get to the city late, and didn’t get my promised “hassle-free” trip through RFD, it’s vacation and I’m not going to argue. Be back Wednesday night, and don’t expect any fuel price updates or other ramblings in the interim.
But I’ll leave you with a couple questions:
1. What’s your favorite airport to fly out of and why?
2. What’s the best airport food you’ve had?
