Peoria Int'l Airport Air Service Detail and Analysis - July 2026

Morning airline operations at Peoria Int'l Airport on May 25, 2026

Evening airline operations at Peoria Int'l Airport on May 25, 2026

It is time for my annual update on local airline service. 

As usual, I use the month of July for my annaul analysis. Barring last minute changes, the schedules and route map below are accurate. So let us delve into the present situation. 

ALLEGIANT AIR
Like last year, schedules for July 2026 show most flights operated with Airbus A320 equipment. They do not discern between 177-seat A320s or brand-new 186-seat A320SEOs. Smaller A319s, configured for 156 seats, are used on Las Vegas and Orlando-Sanford routes. Brand new Boeing 737 Max 8-200 aircraft began appearing on St. Petersburg/Clearwater nonstops as early as February 2025 and are also used on some of the Orlando-Sanford nonstops. These new Boeing planes are equipped with 190 seats. 

Compared to July 2025, the airline is offering four fewer weekly departures. The most significant change is that seasonal Nashville nonstops did not return this spring. There was never a press release or media coverage on this change. Perhaps proximity was an issue, and load factors were rarely sufficient to justify the service? 

Other differences from a year ago include reduced frequencies to Destin/Fort Walton Beach (three, from four) and Las Vegas (two, from three). Last year, Denver and Nashville flights were operated with the same crews and aircraft, stopping at Peoria in both directions. This year, Destin/Fort Walton Beach has replaced Nashville as the other part of the Denver itinerary. The Peoria also has an afternoon turnaround from the Florida point on Saturdays. A replacement for Nashville by anogtther city with a crew base was necessary to support Denver flights. 

AMERICAN EAGLE (Envoy Airlines, PSA Airlines)
Envoy Airlines operates all three Peoria to Chicago-O'Hare roundtrips with 65-seat Embraer 170 equipment. Last year, the carrier flew CRJ700s on this route. 

PSA Airlines handles all Charlotte and Dallas/Ft. Worth nonstops. Each route has two daily flights in each direction on 76-seat CRJ900 equipment. Schedules show that the afternoon flights operate DFW-PIA-CLT and CLT-PIA-DFW itineraries (I'm guessing that crews turn at Peoria back to origin). A third DFW roundtrip is a turnaround operated with a CRJ700. 

UNITED EXPRESS (SkyWest Airlines)
SkyWest Airlines dba United Express now offers five daily roundtrips between Peoria and Chicago-O'Hare. Three of these are operated by SkyWest Airlines using 50-seat CRJ200 equipment, and two are operated by GoJet Airlines using the 55-seat CRJ550. 

SkyWest Airlines operates a 76-seat Embraer 175 on a daily Peoria-Denver roundtrip. 

DOES 2025's PASSENGER RECORD REFLECT A PERMANENTLY BUSIER FACILITY?

I wrote this prediction in 2025's analysis - 

Peoria Int'l Airport came within 1,815 passengers, or 0.23 percent of tying its 2019 record in 2024 when it handled 687,601 passengers. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe, the 2019 record (689,416) will be broken in 2025, and probably by a significant margin. 

And I was exactly correct. Peoria Int'l Airport posted a new record, by a significant margin in 2025, a whopping 812,396 passengers! Not only did it break 2019's record (which it almost did in 2024), it did so by 122,980 passengers, or by 15 percent! It cracked the 700,000 mark (in less than eleven months!) as well as the 800,000 mark for the first time. Traffic was 687,601 in 2024, so 2025's figure grew by 124,795! 

Heavy traffic on Allegiant Air's low-cost nonstops, increased capacity by American Eagle and United Express, and the latter's new Denver nonstops were major reasons for the surge in passengers during 2025. There have been no news reports of record monthly passenger volume, which leads me to believe it is trending below 2025 figures. The terminal parking lot is often near capacity, however, so if 2026 levels don't match 2025's, they are close. 

Remember that we were stuck in an annual average between 350,000 and 450,000 during the 1980s and 1990s after posting a record 550,997 passengers in 1978. Not until 2008 was this record broken, with 564,988 passengers going through our facility. Nothing is permanent, but Peoria Int'l Airport has demonstrated that good airline service and reasonable fares will draw passengers from not only the immediate metro area but most (or all) of Central Illinois. The future will bring ups and downs, but the record is clear what can be accomplished. 

FUTURE AIR SERVICE POSSIBILITIES

I don't see Delta Connection resuming service to Peoria and neither American Eagle or United Express are likely to add new routes. There is a possibility, however, that Allegiant Air will add a destination or two. Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Destin/Ft. Walton Beach and Sarasota/Bradenton are seasonal services, but it is possible one or two may go year round in the not-too-distant future, or have their seasons extended. 

Allegiant Air has not resumed Nashville nonstops, though no reasons have been provided by airline or airport officials. Load factors were likely unsatisfactory, and the plane was probably needed in a more profitable market. Whether this route might return in the future is unknown. For several years now, Fort Lauderdale nonstops have only been offered for about a month during Spring Break in March-April. Central Illinois travelers seem to prefer the Gulf Coast of Florida over the East Coast. 

In 2025, I speculated that Allegiant Air will someday offer nonstops to Austin, Texas, but can only do so when terminal expansion allows it. That could be several years from now, but new possibilities have emerged. Gulf Shores, Alabama, a market in which Allegiant Air entered in May 2025, could be a destination for Peoria as well sometime in the near future. It lies between Mobile to the west and Pensacola, Florida to the east. 

In January, Allegiant Air announced a deal to acquire Minneapolis, Minn.-based Sun Country Airlines. After receiving regulatory approval, the transaction was completed on May 13. For now, the two carriers will operate separately. In the near future, they will be combined under the Allegiant name. Sun Country's value to Allegiant Air includes an extensive network which includes Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. Since Allegiant's plan for strategic partnership with Viva Aerobus is dead due to disputes between the U. S. and Mexican governments, it appears the Sun Country deal may someday provide Allegiant cities like Peoria seasonal nonstops to Mexican resort destinations like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. (Peoria's international terminal was completed a decade ago for this reason.)

AIR CARGO
United Parcel Service provides schedule air cargo flights into Peoria. A Boeing 757-200, operating flight No. 620, arrives Tuesday through Friday mornings (before sunrise) and departs as Flight No. 619 to Louisville on those days in late evening. (If you drive by the Ronald W. Burling Cargo Terminal on Tuesday through Friday, you will see this aircraft parked all day.) 

Extra flights can happen. Flight No. 9767, operated with a Boeing 757-200, has been arriving Friday mornings from Chicago-O'Hare International Airport for at least the past month. No extra scheduled departures are shown, so the aircraft must be ferried to another point, possibly Rockford. 

Last year at this time, UPS was still operating a southbound itinerary, Rockford-Peoria-Louisville, with an Airbus A-300 on Monday and Thursday evenings. A northbound flight operated Louisville-Peoria-Rockford with a Boeing 767-300 on Saturday mornings. The reasons for the elimination of the A-300 and 767-300 flights are unclear. Most UPS business is emergency Caterpillar parts consigned to distribution centers and dealers. Perhaps more freight is being trucked to Rockford, UPS's nearest hub? 

I would like to see Amazon Prime Air start service to PIA. If they did this, Prime would probably use a a Boeing 737-300 to its Cincinnati hub four days a week. 

CENTRAL ILLINOIS REGIONAL AIRPORT

As Peoria Int'l Airport's passenger volume surged, our neighbor to the southeast, Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA), began a string of air service announcements. All three carriers serving CIRA would add capacity and routes. And a "new" airline was coming as well. 

The first came November 18 when Allegiant Air announced that it would offer twice-weekly nonstop service to Phoenix-Mesa. Service began February 13, and ended in May. It will resume Friday, November 20, with subsequent flights on November 23 (Monday), November 25 (Wednesday) and November 29 (Sunday) before settling on a Monday/Friday pattern in December. Bookings are available through February 8, but one would think the season will last into May. Perhaps Peoria's tight parking situation prompted Allegiant to offer Phoenix service out of CIRA, at least on a seasonal basis. 

Six days later, Delta Connection announced that it was resuming a third daily Atlanta roundtrip on March 8. You'll remember that Delta Connection dropped Peoria effective July 6, 2020 after reducing thrice-daily Atlanta nonstops to once daily following COVID restrictions. This left CIRA as the only station for the airline in the Central Illinois region, a situation unlikely to change. 

Online schedules showed that American Eagle was restoring a third daily roundtrip to Chicago-O'Hare on February 12. A change in regional partner reduced frequency in April 2025. 

But the biggest announced would come on January 27. United Express announced four daily roundtrips to Chicago-O'Hare would start on May 7. United Express had served CIRA in 2000-2008 with Chicago-O'Hare service. Notably, Champaign-Urbana's Willard Airport was getting the same service, starting one week earlier on April 30. 

CIRA was on a role, on a level not seen in probably a quarter century. That United Express would dump so much more capacity into Central Illinois had to be concerning to Peoria officials. Either fares would have to decline to fill all of those seats, or the new services would cannibalize existing Peoria flights. Schedules showed, however, that United Express planned to increase Peoria to Chicago-O'Hare frequencies as well. 

Then reality hit CIRA. The new United Express service was delayed until June 1. Both American Airlines and United Airlines were planning such a large increase in flights at Chicago-O'Hare that congestion loomed. The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a cap from May 17 through October 23 this year. So United Express had to delay the start of both Champaign-Urbana (CMI) and CIRA service until October 24. 

Back in February, CIRA director Carl Olson told WGLT Radio 89.1 that his facility handled about 325,000 passengers in 2025. This was a slight decline from 2024, which itself had seen a slight decline from 2023. The additional frequencies to Atlanta and Chicago-O'Hare and new Phoenix-Mesa nonstops guarantee a reversal in this decline for 2026. The new service by United Express would have caused a significant bump for CIRA, very likely raising its passenger volume above the 400,000 mark for the first time since 2019. Now that service has been delayed until late in the year, this will not happen. And one wonders if the FAA imposes a flight cap on O'Hare again in 2027, what will become of CIRA's United Express service? 

Combined, American Eagle and Delta Connection offer eight daily departures to three hubs. Allegiant Air adds one or two, depending on the day of the week. CIRA will have a good year in 2026, though not as good if United Express had been able to start service some six months earlier. 

FLIGHT SCHEDULES, ROUTE MAP
My sources for the July 2026 schedules below are the carriers' online schedules. As usual, Allegiant Air sometimes schedules some of the same flights week-to-week at different times by a few minutes.  Allegiant Air offers five departures on Thursdays and Sundays, four on Saturdays, three on Mondays and Fridays, and two on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

In summary, PIA offered 12 nonstop destinations on three carriers in July 2026. Allegiant Air flies 24 weekly departures (two to six, depending on the day) to Denver, Destin/Ft. Walton Beach, Las Vegas, Orlando-Sanford, Phoenix-Mesa, Punta Gorda/Ft. Myers, Sarasota/Bradenton and St. Petersburg/Clearwater. American Eagle flies two daily departures to Charlotte, three each to Chicago-O'Hare and Dallas/Ft. Worth. United Express flies five daily departures to Chicago-O'Hare and one to Denver. Thus, daily departures by all three carriers total between 16 and 19, depending on the day of the week. 

- David P. Jordan