September 10, 2006

Rockford Airport

Letter in the the Rockford Star from their Airport Director. Has anyone heard anything from our airport director since the announcement by Allegiant to leave ORH??


Published: September 10, 2006
Opinion Columnists
RFD grows with more places to go
By Bob O’BrienSpecial to the Register Star

We have started on a journey of creating economic wealth and increasing the quality of life for the citizens of the Rock River Valley regional community. Your continued support and efforts have helped the Chicago/Rockford International Airport grow to the 226th largest passenger-service airport in the United States and the 19th fastest-growing air cargo airport in the world. Once again, we are asking you to show your support for the airport and airlines servicing our community.Allegiant Air has been successfully providing nonstop service to Orlando and Las Vegas for nearly a year. And now at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Main Terminal, Allegiant will host a news conference to announce a new nonstop destination.This will be a great opportunity for us to show our continued support of the airline’s ongoing operation at Chicago/Rockford International Airport. We hope you will join us.

This is just one of the exciting announcements this week at the airport.In March of this year, Festival Airlines announced its intention of starting a new leisure airline for the Chicago region with its base of operations in Rockford. Festival is committed to our community and has invested more than $40,000 in being part of our On the Waterfront event held over Labor Day weekend.At 4:30 p.m. Thursday (date pending), Festival Airlines will host a news conference to announce these destinations that it will fly to from Chicago/Rockford International Airport and from Chicago Midway Airport. We hope you can join us for this exciting announcement, as it will be a great opportunity for area residents to meet Festival Airlines’ senior management and to wish them well on their business venture from Chicago/Rockford International Airport.And just last week, additional good news was announced. Beginning Oct. 8, United Airlines will increase its seat capacity to Denver by over 6 percent with the addition of a second nonstop flight on Sunday, increasing the total weekly flights from 13 to 14.We encourage you to continue your support of Allegiant Air, Apple Vacations and United Airlines, and please join us as we welcome our newest air-service partner Festival Airlines.

Bob O’Brien is executive director of the Chicago/Rockford International Airport.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good things come to those who pony up!

I am really interested to see where and when Festival will fly to.

Bill Randell said...

Dave:

Nothing

Anonymous said...

It appears RFD's success is a combination of all parties involved from the city, airport director, airport commission right on down to the ailines ,FBO's,Cargo operations are all working on the same page. You get the feeling they take pride in their airport and understand everbodies success=growth.
They put out the welcome mat and mean it.

Anonymous said...

The boss may have told those under him to saay nothing or those on the hill realize it may be best to just say nothing.

Not defending anyones actions here... when you dont know what to say sometimes it is best to say nothing, lest you be miscontrued or misinterpreted.

Kind of like pleading the 5th i guess.

Anonymous said...

The boss may have told those under him to saay nothing or those on the hill realize it may be best to just say nothing.

Not defending anyones actions here... when you dont know what to say sometimes it is best to say nothing, lest you be miscontrued or misinterpreted.

Kind of like pleading the 5th i guess.

Anonymous said...

Is it me or does anyone else have a problem with 2 stories in todays Sunday paper?

1. Canal Fest. A pow wow to promote re opening the Blackstone Canal for what seems to be aesthetic reasons only? No mention what it will cost to undertake or to maintain this newly created piece of City infrastructure. No mention of the infrastructure that we cannot afford now! No mention of the impact on existing businesses in the area.


2. Another new signage program, which signs will direct the geographically challenged to 6 new "districts", with each district being centered around cultural institutions (translation: non profits). How about the Airport Hill Enterprise District?

Granted that navigating city streets isnt easy for the unfamiliar, but what old, industrial city is?

Those who come to revel in the city's rich cultural heritage do not have access to Mapquest?

The largest group of non-taxpaying, non profit entities(Clark, HC, WPI, etc) cannot tap their combined multibillion dollar endowments to pay for this "Wayfinding" program themselves.


If I am taxpayer St. Gobain/Norton Co., do I ask the city to help pay for signage to direct customers & vendors to the newly annointed Greendale Industrial & Railroad District? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Rockford blogger

j.j. said it well. Everyone at RFD
including an excellent board has worked hard to get where we are at today. Still much to do, no question. Looks like Festival may be getting ready to announce shortly possibly by Thursday of this week.

It also should be said that the communication and marketing has been done not only in Rockford but the regional community including Northern IL, Southern WI, and Eastern IA.