Flights from Bloomington-Normal to Las Vegas are coming this summer.
The Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA) is adding nonstop flights to Vegas on Frontier Airlines, starting Aug. 12. The flights will run twice a week — on Thursdays and Sundays. Introductory fares start as low as $49.
CIRA Director Carl Olson said it’s a “tremendous” opportunity for the airport and for travelers.
"There's a lot of pent-up demand to get out and start enjoying life again. This is a good time to do it, and a good place to do it,” Olson said Tuesday at news conference at CIRA. “With the low fares and the good service, we hope all of central Illinois comes out and starts enjoying life again, starting at the Central Illinois Regional Airport."
Las Vegas will become the 10th nonstop flight destination offered at CIRA. Others include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Detroit. Olson said Florida destinations, including Destin, Orlando and St. Pete, have proven popular as people make summer travel plans.
This isn’t the first time CIRA has offered flights to Las Vegas. Olson said the airport ran a route to Nevada in the early 2000s, adding that service was suspended in 2008 as oil prices spiked and airlines had difficulty dealing with high jet fuel prices.
Olson said in addition to adding the Las Vegas route, the airport is picking up more flights to existing destinations.
“We’re starting to see more seats come back. For example, on our nonstop service to Detroit, Delta just added two more weekly flights on that. We’re getting additional flights to Denver and additional frequencies to Florida,” he said.
Olson said that’s the result of more people willing to travel as pandemic restrictions are lifted. He said passenger loads are averaging in the upper-70% to upper-80% range.
“Obviously, like everybody else, we suffered in 2020. But traffic is coming back,” Olson said. “When we look at May of this year compared with May of 2019—because we’re kind of writing off 2020—traffic is only down 24%.”
Olson said passenger traffic is largely driven by leisure travel, but CIRA is starting to see a slow rebound in business travel. He said the airport expects to see larger numbers of business travelers coming back by late summer or early fall.
