The Pantagraph Finally Reports CIRA's 2017 Passengers!


While most media outlets from coast to coast report their local airports' passenger figures by mid- to-late January, The Pantagraph waited until March 27 to report CIRA's figures, which was 333,932. 

Last year's tally represented the lowest figure since 1997 when 281,942 passengers used Central Illinois Regional Airport's terminal facilities. Traffic was down 12 percent from 2016's tally of 381,109 passengers. 

A 12 percent decline may be embarrassing, but such figures need to be reported without delay. News is news, good or bad. The reasons given are predictable, and one is simply bogus.

A combination of airline mergers and a slowdown in local business travel continue to drive passengers away from the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington as officials look for ways to reverse the disappointing trend.

Airline mergers? Southwest Airlines acquired AirTran Airways in May 2011 and withdrew from Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA) in June 2012, nearly six years ago. The most recent merger, American Airlines-US Airways, begun in December 2013, had a negligible effect on CIRA. In fact, CIRA posted a slight increase in passengers during 2015.

A slowdown in local business travel seems to be the real culprit here. Locally-based State Farm Insurance has let go a large number of contract workers and reduced its travel budget. Service cutbacks on Delta Connection (Detroit service axed; Minneapolis/St. Paul service reduced) during 2016 had to hurt. Another factor may be that fares are no longer competitive with nearby Peoria. In fact, they may be higher at CIRA.

Executive Director Carl Olson does note that, 

 “We saw some new strength in the business traffic in November, December and January so we hope we have bottomed out on that and are headed in the right direction.”

Hopefully, traffic will bottom out, or even rise, in 2018. 

- David P. Jordan

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