Peoria Station

United Express is increasing service to Peoria again. The carrier has returned to five daily roundtrips between Peoria International Airport and Chicago-O'Hare International Airport, probably this month. But on March 30-31, service increases to SEVEN daily roundtrips. The schedule for that date is as follows- From Chicago-O'Hare 10:02 CRJ200 12:36 CRJ200 14:07 CRJ550 16:44 CRJ200 18:53 CRJ200 21:08 CRJ550 22:27 CRJ200 To Chicago-O'Hare 06:30 CRJ550 08:15 CRJ200 10:40 CRJ200 13:20 CRJ200 14:50 CRJ550 17:25 CRJ200 19:28 CRJ200 Those flights with CRJ550 equipment, offering 50 seats and three-class service, are operated by GoJet Airlines. Those with CRJ200 equipment, offering 50 seats and single-class service, are operated by SkyWest Airlines.  But the frequency buildup is only temporary, as on May 21-22, service is cut back to five daily roundtrips, but with deployment of 76-seat Embraer 175 equipment on at least two, perhaps three roundtrips. I would include a schedule for th...

The Peoria Journal Star posted online a story yesterday touting rising passenger traffic. Unlike most business news, this was prompted by something other than a press release. PASSENGER TRAFFIC DOWN SLIGHTLY THROUGH JULY Unfortunately, the article fails to provide passenger data for recent months. The airport touted record traffic for each of the first three months this year, but not since. I suspected business declined in April, and I was correct, at least according to figures from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics . BTS data excludes charter passengers and the newest figures are three months old for proprietary reasons, but we can use it determine trends. Using BTS figures, I came up with the following for the first seven months of 2017. *January - 47,536 *February - 46,148 *March - 59,836 April - 48,291 May - 51,166 June 57,815 July 55,622 Total - 366,414 So how does this compare to the first seven months of 2016? January - 43,387 Februar...