Business Continues to Rebound for Quad-City International Airport

As flights, and the passengers who occupy them, increase at the Quad-City International Airport, the Moline-based airport is focused on the future.

Ben Leischner, executive director, said there were about 7,000 passengers in May, a decrease of about 89% from the approximately 64,000 passengers in May 2019.

“There’s a lag to what these numbers show, the last part of May travel started to pick up … (we) doubled the numbers we saw in April” and expect to double May in June, he said.

“We’re on a good trajectory for recovery.”

That was one of the messages Leischner and his staff presented at Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the Metropolitan Airport Authority of Rock Island County.

The governing board met Tuesday morning with about half of the topics focused on recovery for the local air travel industry all while the facility heads toward a main terminal revamp in the coming years, among other improvements.

To that extent, the Metropolitan Airport Authority of Rock Island County approved a service agreement with Alliiance for the Minneapolis-based architectural firm to assess the terminal facility and other aspects to a first phase of the terminal overhaul. That work is not to exceed $84,000 and is being done instead of a larger planning project that may have cost about $212,000, Leischner said.

He approached Alliiance about a phased approach given the slowdown in travel from the new coronavirus.

“There are things we need to get done right away. We need to develop a sense of place. We need to really do a facilities assessment in really identifying what our deficiencies are, as far as facilities, and then working on developing a few small projects to really get this moving,” Leischner said.

That is the first step the airport and Alliiance have taken forward after the board retained the firm earlier this year for the revamp of the main terminal. The bulk of that project, 70%, is expected to be paid for by use of federal dollars on the estimated $20 million project that is slated to be completed in the coming years.

Ashleigh Johnston, public relations and marketing manager, updated the board on marketing operations during Tuesday’s meeting. MindFire Communications of LeClaire was brought on last month to help the board communicate its enhanced safety measures in response to COVID-19.

MindFire is rebranding the airport and its website. Part of that work will include sending a survey out to the airport’s existing database of travelers, which includes about 14,000 people.

That survey “really is focused on the more overall traveler persona that we have, and not necessarily COVID-19. We feel we need to start from the beginning to get to know who our travelers are,” Johnston said.

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