Peoria Station

PEORIA – Finally – after three decades! While many airports serving similar-sized cities handle far more passengers (some more than 1 million annually), Peoria’s has mostly declined or stagnated since President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law in October 1978. That year, the Greater Peoria Airport handled 550,997 passengers. Fare wars during 1986 and 1992 stimulated passenger traffic to the 450,000 mark, but not until the mid-2000’s was the 1978 record within reach.

Just two airlines – Continental and Ozark – served Peoria in 1978. The former then offered one daily roundtrip between Chicago-O’Hare and Peoria, and two daily roundtrips between Peoria and Los Angeles (with a stop at Kansas City in each direction). The “airline with the golden tail” used Boeing 727-200’s. A second daily Chicago-O’Hare roundtrip had been dropped by April 1978, and all but a single daily roundtrip to and from Los Angeles, via Kansas City, would remain by October.

Starting in 1969, Ozark built Peoria into a sort of “mini hub,” or “focus city” in today’s vernacular. Aircraft used to operate Peoria schedules in 1978 were the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-10 and DC-9-30 and Fairchild FH-227. The airline’s system timetable effective December 1, 1978 shows 28 weekday nonstops and same-plane direct* flights to Atlanta, Cedar Rapids, Champaign/Urbana, Chicago-O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth*, Decatur, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville*, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-La Guardia*, Rochester (MN)*, St. Louis* (all flights stopped at Springfield enroute), Sioux City, Springfield (IL) and Washington-Dulles.* All but three of the 28 were operated with jet aircraft.

Ozark Air Lines suffered strikes in both 1979 and 1980, which helped lure competitors to siphon off the airline’s loyal passengers. When Trans World Airlines resumed service to Peoria after 21 years in June 1981, Ozark faced direct competition to its largest markets – Chicago-O’Hare and St. Louis – and beyond. The airline had already reduced point-to-point flying by then and new competition, the PATCO strike and a declining economy forced additional cutbacks. Chicago-O’Hare service ended October 25, 1981, and by August 1982, all passage to major cities beyond St. Louis required changing planes.

Throughout the 1980’s, passenger counts averaged around 400,000. Higher fares, and fewer nonstop destinations caused considerable leakage to Chicago and St. Louis. Inserting “Regional” into the airport’s name in 1989 proved more symbolic than substantive. Air service deterioration only continued into the 1990’s as the last mainline jet service ended with United Air Lines’ last departure to Moline and Denver on February 7, 1995. Save for United Express’ regional jet service to Denver, all flights were operated with turboprops.

Ironically, what led to the mid-2000’s passenger traffic stimulus was competition from Bloomington-Normal’s aptly-named Central Illinois Regional Airport. Low-Cost Carrier (LCC) AirTran Airways began almost daily nonstop service to Orlando, Florida in December 1996. The following month, Frontier Airlines began a single daily one-stop to Denver (via Omaha), and so for the first time, “CIRA” was served with mainline jets – Boeing 737-200’s. Peoria had none (89-seat BAe-146’s operating the Denver flights were close, but no cigar). The new service immediately stimulated traffic.

The infamous Valujet Airlines purchased AirTran in 1997, with which it merged operations the following year. CIRA gained nonstop Atlanta service (something Peoria enjoyed briefly from December 1978 to April 1980) on March 1, 1998. By fall, Orlando service had been dropped and Atlanta service built up to three daily nonstops. CIRA was poised to overtake Peoria as Central Illinois’ airline service leader.

Peoria fought CIRA’s success by putting its eggs in the AccessAir basket. The Des Moines-based carrier began operations with a fleet of Boeing 737-200’s on February 4, 1999, eventually offering four arriving and four departing flights to Colorado Springs, Des Moines, Los Angeles, Moline and New York-La Guardia. Promised service to Washington, DC, Phoenix and other cities failed to materialize and after numerous flight cancellations and negative publicity, the airline suspended operations on November 27, after less than a year of flying.

Finally, in August 2000, the Greater Peoria Airport Authority decided to fight CIRA on its own turf – free parking. GPRA officials also persuaded some airlines to drastically lower fares. A year later, Peoria gained its own Atlanta service when Delta Connection partner Atlantic Southeast Airlines began service. Unfortunately, September 11 led to a deeper airline industry recession and a series of devastating cutbacks.

GPRA won over Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air to start service, edging out CIRA. Large jets – McDonnell Douglas MD-83’s – would operate the flights. The service, which began on March 4, 2004, was an immediate success, with many flights sold out. GPRA attracted passengers from as far away as the Bureau Valley, Metro East and the Quad Cities. It seemed that everyone wanted to go to Las Vegas. For the only the second time in its history, GPRA cracked the 500,000-passenger mark in 2005, in fact exceeding it by 20,000.

Traffic was down in 2006 owing to the loss of Allegiant flights to Orlando (Sanford), but the addition of six destinations starting with St. Petersburg/Clearwater in December 2006, caused the airport to come within striking distance of its 1978 record in 2007, when 543,619 passengers went through the airport’s gates. Officials predicted the 1978 record would be broken in 2008, and were proven correct. Last year, 564,988 passengers were handled. The number might have exceeded 600,000 were it not for the loss of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando (Sanford) flights, higher fares to cover rising fuel prices and a declining economy.

The year 2009 will be challenging to the General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport. Passenger counts will probably drop below 500,000 unless there is soon a significant change in the present economic situation. Most analysts agree that recovery may come by year’s end. If so, it will come not to soon as the new terminal complex is slated for opening in fall 2010.

You can read the Journal Star article here.

NOTE: It is not the intention of the author to oversimply the the last thirty years of Peoria commercial aviation history. Numerous airlines, mergers and route changes occurred during this time, and including them would probably prove too intense to the average reader.

- David P. Jordan