MidAmerica St. Louis Airport moves up in state rankings
By RANDY PIERCE
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MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, located at the intersection of Illinois Route 4 and Interstate 64 north of Mascoutah, is now the fifth busiest facility providing passenger air transportation in the entire state, based on the number of what the aviation trade calls enplanements, travelers getting on and off planes at this facility.
Setting in the sixth position since 2017, the local St. Clair County airport, formally referred to as BLV because of its proximity to Belleville, is experiencing new higher totals of passengers, according to MidAmerica’s director, Darren James, that enables it to surpass Central Illinois Regional in the Bloomington-Normal area on the state’s list that shows Chicago’s two international locations, O’Hare and Midway, on top followed by General Downing in Peoria and Quad Cities in Moline.
In presenting such information to the St. Clair County Public Building Commission, which oversees the operation of BLV, at its most recent regular monthly meeting, James said he anticipates this positioning will remain in place for the foreseeable future due to continued growth in services offered and this airport’s popularity resulting from several years of added destinations.
While including Gulf Shores, Alabama among those places people can fly to and from BLV has certainly been a factor, the overall reason for the increase, according to James, relates to how its passenger service carrier, Allegiant, has continued to expand what’s offered here in response to growing customer traffic.
Gulf Shores flights are “nearly maxed out every time,” James noted, but the overall numbers as a whole are what helps contribute to the state ranking increase as exemplified by a record of 25,945 enplanements set in June, eclipsing the previous mark for that month of 24,663 in 2021 by five percent.
Even greater increases in the same figures were shared by James in regard to June of last year compared to 2025 where a hike of 20 percent occurred and during the first six months of both years, the difference being 27 percent.
In that the BLV airport relies on auxiliary sources of revenue to remain economically viable and successful, James pointed out how from June 2024 to this year, the income from parking fees collected climbed by 23 percent and concession sales rose 38 percent.
The Allegiant expansion effort that he referenced is indicated by the difference in the close to 180 flights at BLV this June while in 2024 there were about 40 fewer.
Should the enplanement projections for the balance of 2025 as provided to the PBC by James play out as expected, based on existing reservations, prior passenger trends and other factors, there will have been close to 200,000 (196,048) of them by year’s end, far exceeding the existing annual record of 162,000-plus in 2022.
During the same PBC meeting where all of this was discussed, James further shared an update regarding the new federal inspection station that is progressing in advance of anticipated international flights to one or more destinations in Mexico by explaining such aspects of it as the building configuration, the processing procedure, pathways and an entry point which will be utilized.
Rich Sauget, the PBC chairman since the airport opened in 1997, who has played a vital role in its growth, obviously remembering times when there were no BLV flights at all, criticisms concerning the facility’s cost and public attention resulting from situations such as when a St. Louis television news journalist focused on these circumstances, remarked, “Isn’t this a great discussion to have versus 20 years ago, 10 years ago?”
Randy Pierce is a reporter for Herald Publications, part of the Better Newspapers Inc. media family
