The last direct flight to St. Louis departed January 31, 2006, from the Peoria airport. Trans States Airlines, d/b/a American Connection, had operated two daily roundtrip flights to St. Louis.

I never would have known we were losing flights were it not for David Jordan’s blog. In addition to the loss of St. Louis service, I learned that service to Dallas/Fort Worth was cut in half as recently as December 14 (from two to one daily roundtrip flight), and Peoria-Atlanta service on Delta Connection dropped from four flights to three last summer.

I wonder, along with David, why these stories weren’t reported in the Peoria press.  They seem newsworthy to me.  The good news is that, despite cuts in the number of flights, the number of passengers is the highest it’s been in 27 years.  The Journal Star recently reported that ridership in 2005 was up 15 percent over 2004.

Peoria Regional Airport does still have service to Atlanta (Delta), Chicago (American, United), Dallas/Fort Worth (American), Las Vegas (Allegiant), and Minneapolis (Northwest).