Rockford Airport

It has been a long time since i gave any updates on this airport, the role model for all secondary airports in the United States. Saw this piece in the Chicago Tribune:


From the standpoint of the Chicago-Rockford International Airport, you might think the economy is A-OK. Never mind that it's an outpost in a community with the highest unemployment rate of any city in Illinois. The airport is still keeping busy. Maybe because it had nowhere to go but up.

From a mere 1,400 passengers in all of 2002, traffic has climbed to 225,000 in 2007, the last full year of published numbers. Air cargo has expanded too, as the UPS trucks around the airport attest. And it has held its own during the downturn, off 4 percent last year compared to a 17 percent decline inair cargo nationally. Meantime, Wanxiang America Corp. has broken ground on a solar-panel manufacturing plant bordering airport property. The Chinese firm is proposing to establish one of the nation's largest "solar farms" for gathering power from the sun.

So no recession at RFD, right? "I am not so sure the recession is over," says Bob O'Brien, the airport's executive director. "I for one think it has peaked for the moment and it's going to fall again before it recovers." The airport is an example of how some businesses hold their own even while others tank. It's never all bleak. "What's going on at this airport is not the norm. It's a niche situation," he said. "We know there's a recession on."