General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport
General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport
General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (IATA: PIA, ICAO: KPIA, FAA LID: PIA) is a civil/military public airport five miles west of downtown Peoria, in Peoria County, Illinois, United States. It is on the northwest edge of Bartonville, near Bellevue. It is owned by the Metropolitan Airport Authority of Peoria, which often refers to it as Peoria International Airport. It was formerly the Greater Peoria Regional Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021 categorized it as a non-hub primary commercial service facility. In 2025, Peoria International Airport had a record-breaking 812,396 passengers fly through the airport - nearly an 18% increase over the previous passenger record.
Location
40.664°N, 89.693°O · 201 m s. n. m. (660 ft)
General data
Runways · 2
Lengths and surfaces from the public OurAirports register; open runways only.
Radio frequencies · 6 Official publication
Tower
Ground
Clearance delivery
ATIS (automatic information)
Approach
UNICOM
Frequencies from the official publication: FAA NASR, AIRAC 01 OCT 2026, checked on Oct 16, 2026. They change with each amendment: not for navigation without checking the current AIP. See the official publication In MHz.
History
On May 19, 1932, the citizens of Peoria voted to have an airport. On 195 acres (0.8 km2), American Airways (now American Airlines) and Chicago and Southern Airlines brought in airmail and passenger services on four shale-surfaced runways. The land was purchased by 261 Peoria businessmen who formed the Peoria Airport, Inc. It was turned over to the Peoria Park District in 1937, then to the newly formed Metropolitan Airport Authority of Peoria in 1950.
American Airlines and Chicago and Southern started flights to Peoria in 1945; C&S pulled out in 1949-50 and American left in 1962, then returned for a couple years starting in 1991. TWA served Peoria 1947 to 1960 and 1983 to 1991; Continental from 1977 to 1983; United from 1984 to 1995; Republic/Northwest 1986 to 1988; and Ozark from 1950 until it merged into TWA. Peoria's first jets were Ozark DC9s in 1966. A curious artifact of airline regulation: Peoria never had nonstop flights beyond Chicago until Ozark was allowed a nonstop to New York La Guardia in 1969.
On April 25, 2007, the Greater Peoria Airport Authority announced that a new nine-gate terminal would be built and the old building demolished. On October 10, 2008, the airport was renamed "General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport" during a groundbreaking ceremony attended by Ross Perot, a friend of the late Wayne A. Downing. The new terminal, designed by Reynolds, Smith & Hills of Jacksonville, Florida and the Dewberry architecture firm of Peoria, and built by Turner Construction, opened on April 27, 2011. As of August 24, 2012, the airport was in negotiations for international flights using a temporary customs facility.
In 2016, the Ray Lahood International Arrivals Terminal was completed, with more gates, TSA services, and a US Customs Port of Entry facility.
In December 2020, Delta Air Lines pulled all its flights from Peoria.
The airport authority selected a site for a new control tower in 2012, with a design phase from 2013 to 2015 and finalized in 2017; however, funding dried up before a new tower was built. As of May 2023, the airport planned to use funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and update design plans to incorporate FAA requirement changes since 2017.
What flies here
From our own logbook: 316 aircraft documented between 2006 and 2025.
Types seen here
Airlines with documented aircraft
Busiest routes from here
A count of our own aircraft profiles, year by year, from the public United States flight records: it reflects what we have documented, not the airport’s total traffic.
Airlines operating here · 3
Other airlines with direct routes
Airlines with current passenger routes from here, according to Wikipedia route tables cross-checked from both ends (October 2026).
Photo: TastyPoutine · CC BY-SA 3.0 · view original
Data from OurAirports (public domain) · destinations and airlines from Wikipedia route tables (CC BY-SA, 2026), unless another source is given · profile and photo from Wikidata/Wikimedia Commons (CC0 / CC) · summary and history from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Cite
To cite this page in academic work, an article or Wikipedia, choose the style and copy the reference. The access date is today.
This page was last updated on October 16, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 16). General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA). Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA
MLA
“General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA).” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 16 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA).” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 16, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA). Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA (Accessed: 17 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_airport_pia,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA)}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-16},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA}},
urldate = {2026-10-17},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-17}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/PIA |title=General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport (PIA) |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-16 |access-date=2026-10-17 |language=en}}