The air transport division of online retailer Amazon is expanding its capacity at a regional airport near Chicago that markets itself as an alternative to the city’s O’Hare International Airport, the nation’s sixth busiest cargo facility.
Amazon Air on Dec. 10 announced it will more than double its presence at Chicago Rockford International Airport, boosting the number of daily cargo flights it operates out of a facility that sits about 90 miles from both Chicago and Milwaukee. In terms of truck access to the area, Interstates 39 and 90 run directly through Rockford, while two more, I-43 and I-88, are about 30 minutes away.
Airport officials have long felt the facility could serve more of the cargo and passenger volume in the growing Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin regions, and see the Amazon move as vindication.
“We have been wondering who would figure it out first, the cargo guys or the passenger guys, and clearly the cargo guys have figured it out,” said Mike Dunn, the airport’s executive director, in an interview with Transport Topics. “It has brought our airport to the attention of a lot of very important people throughout the world.”