Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
University of Illinois Willard Airport (KCMI) is a university-owned field just south of Savoy in Champaign County, Illinois, offering an unusually generous set of long runways and full ILS approach capability for a general aviation and light-commercial field. It sits within Class C airspace under Champaign Approach/Departure control, making it a useful stop for simulator pilots wanting to practise controlled-field procedures alongside flight training traffic.
Willard Airport lies just south of Savoy in Tolono Township, Champaign County, Illinois, and is owned and operated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, making it one of the few commercial airports in the United States run by an educational institution. It serves the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area with a mix of scheduled airline flights, general aviation, air taxi operations, and flight training, and its long concrete and asphalt runways with an ILS approach make it an interesting and accessible destination for simulator pilots flying light aircraft, jets, or turboprops.
Willard Airport is tagged as Class C airspace, with Champaign Approach/Departure Control providing radar service to arriving and departing traffic. The field is located south of Savoy in Tolono Township, Champaign County, Illinois, close to the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana and roughly five miles south of Champaign itself, just off US Route 45.
Willard Airport has four physical runways. The main runway, 14L/32R, is 8,087 feet long, hard-surfaced and lit, with an ILS approach serving runway 32R. Runway 04/22 is 6,480/6,479 feet long, hard-surfaced and lit. Runway 18/36 is 5,272 feet long, hard-surfaced and lit. The shorter parallel runway, 14R/32L, is 3,782 feet long, hard-surfaced and lit.
Champaign Approach/Departure (A/D) operates on 121.35 MHz. The ATIS broadcasts on 124.85 MHz. Clearance Delivery is on 128.75 MHz, Ground on 121.8 MHz, and Champaign Tower on 118.25 MHz. The CTAF is 120.4 MHz and UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. A remote radio outlet for St Louis Radio is listed on 110 MHz. Runway 32R is served by an ILS approach.
Willard Airport was dedicated on 26 October 1945 and began scheduled airline service in 1954. Its original terminal, built in 1960, remained in use until the current terminal was completed in 1987. By 1969 the airport had become the second-busiest in the state of Illinois. Following the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, demand for flights from Willard declined as travellers increasingly favoured larger hub airports such as Chicago O'Hare, and several airlines withdrew service over subsequent decades, including Delta in 2010, Vision Airlines in 2012, and United Airlines in 2018. For many years the airport was home to the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation, a research and pilot training facility; the university trustees voted to close the Institute in 2011, and in 2013 pilot training responsibilities were transferred to Parkland College, a local community college. The airport is also remembered for an incident on 21 January 1998, when Air Force One became stuck in mud on a taxiway while carrying President Bill Clinton to a speaking engagement at the University of Illinois' Assembly Hall; a backup aircraft, the historic SAM 26000, was dispatched to complete the transport. Overall traffic at Willard fell markedly between 2005 and 2013, with passenger enplanements dropping from 132,077 to 84,853 and total operations declining from 123,341 to 54,653 over the same period.
Willard Airport remains owned and operated by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which provides an annual subsidy toward its operations. In January 2023 the airport announced plans for larger aircraft serving Dallas-Fort Worth and expanded service to Chicago O'Hare, alongside an expanded pilot training programme through the Institute of Aviation, terminal and TSA facility upgrades, taxiway improvements to FAA standards, and new firefighting equipment. For the twelve months ending December 2021 the field averaged around 127 aircraft operations per day, roughly 46,000 per year, comprising about 70 percent general aviation, 28 percent air taxi, under 1 percent military, and a small proportion of commercial traffic. At that time 75 aircraft were based at the field, including 56 single-engine and 4 multi-engine airplanes, 12 jets, and 3 helicopters. American Eagle has operated flights to Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O'Hare, and United Express has served Chicago O'Hare, with United announcing plans in January 2026 to resume O'Hare service that April.
