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.