Travel at CIRA has been mostly leisure

Posted on October 20, 2021
Central Illinois Regional Airport deputy director of marketing Fran Strebing says passenger traffic last month was at 88% of what it was in 2019. (WJBC file photo)

By Neil Doyle

BLOOMINGTON – Even with kids back in school, travel was steady last month at Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington.

CIRA deputy director of marketing Fran Strebing says passenger traffic last month was at 88% of what it was in 2019. She spoke with WJBC’s Scott Miller.

“It’s a little bit of a different mix than what we had seen pre-pandemic. We always had that kind of business and leisure travel mix of 60-40, but now it’s quite predominantly leisure with some business mixed in,” said Strebing.

Strebing says they continue to watch the trends and are hoping business travel picks back up. She says CIRA is fortunate with several companies locally continuing to expand, in particular Rivian and Ferrero.

“The businesses that we traditionally saw travelling before the pandemic are not quite back to the full travelling yet,” Strebing added. “We’ll see where that takes us. There has been some adjustments by businesses on how they do business. So we will continue to follow the trends.”

Neil Doyle can be reached at [email protected]

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