Chicago Rockford International Airport
60 Airport Drive
Rockford
IL 61109-2902
(815)969-4000
Chicago Rockford International Airport or Greater Rockford Airport (IATA: RFD, ICAO: KRFD, FAA LID: RFD), is a general aviation and commercial airport in Winnebago County, Illinois, United States. It is located 68 miles (109 km) northwest of Chicago[1] and four miles (6 km) south of Rockford. The airport served over 215,000 passengers in 2007.
RFD traces its history back to 1917, when Camp Grant — a U.S. Army Cavalry Camp was established during the First World War. During the events of World War II, Camp Grant was made into a military training base and prisoner of war confinement center.
Following the war, the state of Illinois adopted the Airport Authority Act. The Greater Rockford Airport Authority was created in 1946. For more than forty years this airport was referred to as the Greater Rockford airport. In 1987, the current passenger terminal was built in an effort to attract more passenger service. Rockford had been primarily seen as a regional airport at that time. Six years later, United Parcel Service opened its first of two cargo facilities at the airport. The location became a selling point as a transportation facility for cargo as well as for passengers.
Being less than 90 miles (145 km) from downtown Chicago, the airport's name was changed to the Northwest Chicagoland Regional Airport at Rockford in the early 2000s. In 2004 the airport became the Chicago/Rockford International Airport (the slash was removed in 2007) when the airport gained an official US port of entry and achieved international status. The name change not only made it shorter, but also brought it in line with the other two "Chicago" airports (O'Hare and Midway). In many forms of media, the airport also markets itself by its three FAA call letters: RFD.
Today, the Rockford airport is marketed to residents of Rockford and surrounding areas as an alternative to Chicago Midway International Airport and O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, WI and Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, WI as well as limited service airports such as the one at Dubuque, Iowa. The airlines at RFD also often use their low fares and free airport parking as a selling point as well.
Larry Morrissey, the mayor of Rockford, has pushed for high-speed rail to link the airport with O'Hare International.
The current passenger terminal was constructed in 1987 in an effort to expand passenger service in Rockford. However, the common usage of bus service to O'Hare International Airport kept most airlines away from Rockford. Consequently, passenger service was lost completely from 2001 to 2003. An upgrade to the terminal in 2005 brought additional jetways, the addition of escalators, and improved baggage handling equipment(the previous system catered more to smaller turboprop aircraft rather than jets).
The airport is in a foreign-trade zone. As runway 7/25 is 10,000 feet long, a wide variety of passenger and cargo aircraft can land at RFD; the largest aircraft currently landed at RFD is the Antonov An-124 Ruslan.
RFD currently has two cargo aprons that are in use. In November 2008, a third one was completed along the west end of runway 7/25 (southwest of the existing UPS ramp), but there are no current tenants.