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?