Thursday, June 20, 2013

RFD Releases May Passenger Traffic Numbers

ROCKFORD, Ill. – The Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) today released traffic statistics for May 2013. Reports show a 35.3 percent increase in traffic over May of 2012. The increase can be attributed to a number of factors including Allegiant’s expanded Ft. Myers service and additional flights to Cancun via Apple Vacations. Flights departing in May averaged a 91 percent load factor.

Following is an overview of monthly and year-to-date statistics.

Monthly Statistics

May 2013 – 17,820 Passengers
May 2012 – 13,172 Passengers

Year-To-Date Statistics

January-May 2013 – 110,157 Passengers
January-May 2012 – 108,618 Passengers

Wednesday, April 24, 2013


RFD Recognized for Excellence in Financial Reporting 


For the 15th consecutive year, the Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) has received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA). The award specifically recognizes the airport’s comprehensive annual financial report.

This certificate is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting. RFD Deputy Director of Finance and Administration Amy Ott and the finance staff produced the award-winning financial report.

“Our administration and finance department has done an outstanding job year after year in providing full disclosure on the airport’s financial picture,” said RFD Director Mike Dunn. “We are committed to providing transparency to taxpayers, and our annual financial report is an important tool that helps us accomplish this goal.” 
The GFOA is a nonprofit professional association serving approximately 17,500 government finance professionals.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The Dream Tour in Rockford



One of the coolest parts of working at the airport is getting to host special events! For the past two days RFD has played host to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner Dream Tour. You can follow the dream tour on twitter #dreamtour

How did RFD get on the list of stops? For those of you who don't know, the Rockford region is a hot bed for aerospace corporations. The Dream Tour came to town so that Boeing partners Hamilton Sundstrand, Woodward Governor, Rockwell, GE, Ingersoll and many more!

Over two days we've seen over 2,000 people who were involved in the construction of components of the aircraft get to step on the the aircraft. The best part of the tour has been standing in the doorway as people take their first step on and watch as they can't help but smile and say "wow!"



The dream tour has been spectacular and Boeing can certainly be proud of the final product. As with all special events the dream tour didn't last long, but on its way out of town it again showed what an incredible asset this region has in its airport. The 787 just took off of our 10,000 foot runway flying non-stop to Dublin, Ireland.

A beautiful airplane and a reminder of what an incredible place Rockford, Illinois is in the world of aviation.

Friday, January 6, 2012

November Traffic Up 10%, RFD Surpasses 2010

It's always exciting when we get to report good news and today is one of those days. November was a great month for RFD and the 13,533 passengers who used RFD helped us surpass 2010's passenger numbers!

November saw a 10.4% increase in traffic. Direct Air had a phenomenal month in November with their Ft. Myers/Punta Gorda service. Their traffic for the route was up 114% over last year. Overall November flights went out 90% full.

So far in 2011 traffic is up 17% with 172,553 passengers flying in and out in the first 11 months, with flights 90% full on average.

That traffic figure is very exciting because through 12 months of 2010 we had 164,872 passengers, so in just 11 months we surpassed last years total traffic!

We continue to remain positive about 2012 with the recent addition of Frontier Airlines service to Denver and our new Apple Vacations service to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Both of those destinations began in December and will help future months traffic statistics.

Did you fly out of RFD in November? If not are you planning on taking a trip from RFD in 2012?

Monday, December 5, 2011

RFD Plans for AirFest at ICAS

Rockford AirFest

RFD is attending the International Council of AirShows (ICAS) from December 4-8 in Las Vegas. This is the conference where much of the airshow business gets done. Every year, after the keynote speaker finishes, the show dates are put up on a big screen. Some shows have an idea that they will have a jet team, and others literally find out for sure at that moment. There are cheers, a couple groans, and a lot of buzz. As soon as that is completed, the entire room, over 750 people, pour into the exhibit hall to start the work of putting together their event. There are vendors, performers, military, media, and a lot of air show professionals. The atmosphere is electric as all of the directors and air show personnel go from booth to booth matching up dates with performers. Each night the deals continue at and around the hotel. What results are a lot of lineups get set for the next year. The result is a lot of work towards entertaining millions of people in families across the country in the year to come.

RFD plans throughout the year for the AirFest. Each year the planning begins shortly after the last plane has taken off from the show. The 40+ staff at RFD, 50+ steering committee members and the 650-700 volunteers work incredibly hard to make the AirFest possible. Each year the show gets bigger and bigger, and despite setbacks of weather and last year’s unfortunate cancellation of the Blue Angels, AirFest continues providing a better quality of life and great entertainment to adults and kids alike in the Midwest. Stay tuned as the announcement for both 2012 and hopefully 2013 is revealed on Monday, December 5, 2012 around 12:30p CST.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Diversions Add Up Part #1

On November 30th RFD staff took part in the Department of Transportation (DOT) / Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aircraft Diversion Forum in Washington DC. This Forum was attended by over 100 industry leaders to address the problem of extended tarmac delays for diverted flights. Airports, Airlines, Air Traffic Control, and Homeland Security personnel were on hand to openly share thoughts and ideas on how to better prepare the National Airspace System for future diversion events.

RFD serves as a primary diversion airport for 31 air carriers that service the region. Our facilities, ranging from our 10,000ft Runway, our Category II/III Instrument Landing System and our fuel and deicing capabilities, not to mention our geographic location in relation to Chicago O'Hare, Midway and Milwaukee, and our International Arrival Gate make us very attractive to the airlines when considering where to divert.

While we welcome diversions, this forum gave us valuable insight and industry connections for future events. We continue to update our aircraft diversion plan and to work with all of our partners to ensure that what we do is safe, and is in the best interest of the airlines and their passengers.

In the coming months you will see more on this topic, both here and in the media. We hope to hear from some of you who have been on a diverted flight to get a better understanding on what passengers need while they are in a diversion situation. As we make updates to our plan we are going to talk about those improvements here on our blog. We also want to make sure that we highlight our partners from local hotels to transportation companies who are there when we need them to take care of our unscheduled visitors.

Throughout this process one thing will remain constant, RFD's commitment to being a world class airport and to provide the safest, most customer friendly airport environment for diverted flights.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

October up 26%

A huge thank you to all of you who Flew RFD in October. It's not every day that an airport gets to publish a press release showing 26% growth year over year but that is what we had the pleasure of doing late last week!

We want to thank Allegiant Air for adding additional seats into our Las Vegas market using a Boeing 757 aircraft and for additional flights into Phoenix-Mesa.

For the month of October we had 12,006 passengers use RFD in October. Thats up from 9,564 in October of 2010. Even more impressive was our load factor (how full the planes are) at 92%. These full flights really demonstrate that given product RFD can serve as an air service alternative for the region.


We are also very excited to be bringing on Frontier Airlines to Denver beginning December 15, and adding our Second Apple Vacations destination, Punta Cana, beginning December 26. Both of these destinations will continue to move our passenger numbers upward.


Going forward we continue to focus on finding additional destinations, carriers and frequencies. This is all part of our Strategic Plan, adopted by the board to continue to focus on Passenger Air Service Development.



So, what destinations would you like to see out of RFD?