Frontier Airlines began using a 138-seat on its quad-weekly Bloomington-Normal to Denver route today. The Airbus jet replaced a 99-seat Embraer 190 that has been used since Frontier started its Denver fights on May 18, 2012.
Most of the Republic Airlines-owned Embraers are leaving their Frontier Airlines assignment. Unlike a few other cities, Bloomington-Normal generated enough business to justify retention with larger aircraft.
Frontier Airlines also offers thrice-weekly nonstops out of CIRA to Orlando International Airport in Florida.
- David P. Jordan
6 responses so far ↓
1 Daniel // Jan 7, 2013 at 8:09 pm
According to a comment by CIRA on their Facebook page starting March 2nd the early morning ATL Delta departure will also be on a A319. Guess if the regional jets don’t wake me the 319 will do the trick.
2 David P. Jordan // Jan 7, 2013 at 8:12 pm
Hi Daniel,
I posted a comment about it there Dec. 29. I’m surpised The Pantagraph hasn’t picked up the story
http://peoriastation.blogpeoria.com/2012/12/29/cira-getting-delta-mainline-jets/
3 Daniel // Jan 8, 2013 at 5:00 pm
That you did. I didn’t realize you scooped CIRA as I was reading their comments about Frontier when I caught their “announcement”. I guess that’s what happens when I miss your blog for a few days over the holiday.
And…I’ve learned to never be surprised by the lack of news reporting coming out of the Pantagraph. It should show up promptly in the Money Section the day after the first flight occurs.
4 David P. Jordan // Jan 8, 2013 at 6:42 pm
I think it was in 1997, probably summer or fall, at least several months after AirTran Airways (the original) had started Orlando flights with a 737-200 and Frontier Airlines had begun their CIRA-Omaha-Denver route, also with a 737-200. You could tell the Pantagraph couldn’t wait to scoop CIRA news. It seems that a Pantagraph reporter looked at online schedules (or picked up a Frontier timetable) and found “the next destination.”
Turns out, Frontier’s CIRA-Omaha-Denver flight was to start continuing on to Las Vegas (but there was no eastbound service from there). The “news” was splashed on the front page. Kinda pathetic really.
Granted, if an airline doesn’t send the paper a press release, the paper probably won’t be aware of any service upgrades. The Journal Star is pathetically inconsistent on this, and I’ve scooped them several times. I learned about the DL 319 from a message on Airliners.net and determined from online schedules that the first Delta A-319 arrives Saturday evening, March 2 and departs Sunday morning, March 3.
Considering I posted the DL 319 info to CRIA’s facebook page December 29, and they only acknowledged it yesterday, tells me CIRA didn’t know it either.
5 Daniel // Jan 12, 2013 at 8:11 am
We will never know but I can’t help wonder when reading news about the local airline industry if the media is following your blog?
Actually, as the media continues getting demolished in the new world of citizen journalism it’s not a bad strategy if they start following local blogs. Often times the content is better than what the papers/radio/local TV can do.
http://centralillinoisproud.com/fulltext?nxd_id=299022
6 David P. Jordan // Jan 12, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Hi Daniel,
Peoria-area citizen journalism via blogs is probably of a better quality than most. But traditional media needs to figure out where to get information before the press release comes out. Often times, airlines post future schedules three, four months out and sometimes longer. Changes can be found in those well ahead of an official announcement.
The Rockford Register Star’s Thomas Bona knew this and broke stories well before anyone else did. And he understood commercial aviation lingo (I think he read airliners.net). He was even member of my Downstate_IL_Airports Yahoo! Group. He is now Chicago/Rockford Int’l Airport’s spokesman.
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