Peoria Station

The coronavirus scare has caused predictable congestion at Chicago-O'Hare International Airport. This article  explains the issues, and how nearby Rockford is benefitting.  Limited capacity in commercial airliners has shifted more business to dedicated air cargo firms. This has taxed capacity at O'Hare's outdated freight facilities. Congestion on the ground is expensive in terms of fuel, and delays for customers intolerable. That is why two freight forwarders -  D. B. Schenker and Senator International - have relocated some air cargo flights to Chicago-Rockford International Airport.  I've always wondered why Peoria was never able to attract international air cargo service. Caterpillar is a big user of air freight for emergency parts shipments out of its Morton, Illinois facility with shipments bound for distribution centers in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Japan, etc. There are other local firms that use international air cargo for time-sensitive shipments....

United Parcel Service (UPS) established an air cargo hub at Rockford in 1994. I always wondered if Peoria was a contender for this operation.  By the mid-1980s, rapid growth in air cargo volume at then-Greater Peoria Airport spurred dreams of being an air cargo hub. A new master plan drawn up in 1987 called for development of a large air cargo complex in the airport's southeast quadrant.  PIA's dream was a good one, but it never came close to happening. A bid for designation at the United States Postal Service hub failed in 1989 and 1991 and a failed effort to lure DHL in 1996-1998 prompted the State of Illinois to pass supporting legislation.  In between Peoria's USPS and DHL efforts, UPS developed a hub at then-Greater Rockford Airport. It began in 1993 as a temporary Christmas rush hub to support a large volume of seasonal shipments by Land's End, a clothing, luggage and home furnishing retailer based in Dodgeville, Wisconsin (west of Madison). ...