Peoria Station

Atlantic Southeast Airlines dba Delta Connection operates just one daily roundtrip flight between Peoria and Delta Air Lines’ Atlanta, Georgia hub. I don’t know when service was cut in half – the airline had reduced service from three to two daily roundtrips last January 31 – but I suspect within the past couple of months.

I’m not sure what to make of this cut, but local business travel must be enough to keep the service profitable during the off-peak fall/winter period. Hopefully, a second roundtrip will return in the spring.

The remaining flight departs at 6:00am and returns at 9:22pm.

I’d hate to lose service to Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport, and Delta Air Lines’ largest hub. Apparently, low-fare competition between ASA/Delta and AirTran at nearby Bloomington-Normal is draining passengers from Peoria. ASA/Delta operates four daily roundtrips between Bloomington-Normal and Atlanta, two of which are on 70-seat Canadair Regional Jets. In contrast, AirTran uses 117-seat Boeing 717-200’s on that route. Despite the high passenger counts on both airlines’ Bloomington-Normal flights, yields must be low.

Prior to ASA/Delta’s entrance into the Peoria market, only Ozark Air Lines had offered Atlanta service, starting December 1, 1978. A little more than a year later on December 15, 1979, service doubled, but on April 27, 1980, both daily nonstops were dropped. In their place, Ozark ran a single daily Peoria-St. Louis-Atlanta roundtrip flight, still allowing local travelers to reach the Georgia capital without changing planes. This service lasted barely a week, however, as on May 5, Ozark shut down due to a strike. Peoria-Atlanta service would not be in the Ozark timetables again, and another 21 years would pass before Atlanta service returned.

- David P. Jordan