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.
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