Midway rules bigger share of Chicago sky By Marilyn Adams, USA TODAY CHICAGO =97 There's trouble at mighty O'Hare International Airport, one of= =20 the world's busiest. Anchor United Airlines is fighting for its life in=20 bankruptcy court, and No. 2 carrier American Airlines narrowly avoided a=20 Chapter 11 filing last week. Just 35 miles south is another airfield where= =20 business is growing, and fortunes are good. Little Midway Airport sits on a= =20 postage stamp of land amid working-class neighborhoods on Chicago's=20 southwest side. As Chicago's home to relatively healthy, low-cost airlines,= =20 it's a symbol of much of what's wrong with the big, high-cost, full-service= =20 airlines at O'Hare. Midway's anchor airlines are Southwest and ATA, and=20 discounters AirTran and Frontier also fly there. The airport occupies just= =20 a little more than a square mile of land, and its two runways =97 short by= =20 today's standards =97 cross, so that only one can be used at a time. O'Hare= =20 has seven runways and one more on the drawing board. But several years into= =20 a stunning renovation, Midway now accounts for 22% of all domestic flight=20 departures from Chicago, up from 14% in 1997. And while most airlines have= =20 cut flights since the terrorist attacks, domestic departures from Midway=20 have grown 16% since 2001, according to a USA TODAY analysis of OAG data=20 from Back Aviation Solutions. Domestic departures from O'Hare have dropped= 4%. "The more attractive business traffic goes to O'Hare because it's the=20 epicenter of the metropolitan area," says former Chicago airports official= =20 Jay Franke, now assistant director of Northwestern University's=20 Transportation Center. "But in the markets where it competes, Midway=20 disciplines fares in Chicago. Midway Airport is the Kmart of aviation." As= =20 the Midway carriers grow, United and American fight back with select,=20 specially priced flights from O'Hare. For example, a weekday round trip=20 between O'Hare and Miami, both American hubs, starts at $600 in coach. But= =20 at certain times of day =97 when Southwest flies non-stops between Midway= and=20 Fort Lauderdale =97 American offers that trip for $270. The impact of Midway= =20 and the discount airlines there is even more profound. Aside from Dallas'=20 Love Field, home of discount giant Southwest Airlines, Midway is now the=20 USA's big-city airport most dominated by low-fare airlines: 88% of Midway's= =20 flights are operated by discount carriers, OAG data show. At Phoenix, a=20 much busier airport and a major vacation spot, 81% of flights are run by=20 discount carriers; at Las Vegas, 66%. Midway is the low-priced backdoor to= =20 one of the nation's most lucrative travel markets. United feels so threatened by low-fare airlines like Southwest, ATA and=20 Frontier that it wants to launch a separately branded, low-fare airline as= =20 part of its reorganization plan. The carrier would serve its hub airports,= =20 including O'Hare. The plan is controversial with United's creditors and=20 unions and many on Wall Street, but the airline insists it's key to its=20 survival. Midway's growth and growing popularity among budget-minded=20 business travelers has been enabled by a $791 million modernization and=20 expansion project financed by the airlines and municipal bonds. The project= =20 replaced Midway's aging terminal and gates, moved a busy street almost half= =20 a mile to the east and added a parking garage. It all was accomplished=20 while Midway operated at full capacity. When the project is done in 2004, Midway will have 43 gates, up from 29.=20 Today it's an airy airport whose brick walls and ethnic restaurants reflect= =20 the Chicago outside. Closer to the city's "Loop" business district than is= =20 O'Hare, Midway is served by an elevated train that costs $1.50 each way.=20 "Passengers have more choice, both in destination and price," says Chicago= =20 Aviation Commissioner Tom Walker. "Travelers have the best of both worlds."= =20 But Midway Airport could have become a ghost town during the first Gulf=20 War, when the original Midway Airlines =97 named for the airport =97 quit=20 flying in November 1991. Opened in the late 1920s, the airport's terminal=20 and gates were old and cramped, parking was limited, and there was only one= =20 restaurant. Its claim to fame was that it had been the world's busiest=20 airport =97 in 1959. "It was a period piece," Southwest Airlines CEO Jim Parker jokes, "a great= =20 '30s and '40s-style airport that hadn't been renovated." But it was also a= =20 gateway to Chicago, and Southwest craved more than the four gates it had=20 there. So the day Midway shut down, Parker and other Southwest executives=20 hopped a plane to Chicago and were in the mayor's office the next morning,= =20 pressing their case for more gates and a better Midway. By that afternoon,= =20 the city held a press conference to announce Southwest's new commitment to= =20 Midway. In 1996, the city began the expansion project. Even with the=20 improvements, airlines' cost per flight at Midway is about half what it is= =20 at O'Hare, ATA officials say. Thirty-year-old ATA, whose main hub is=20 Midway, is Chicago's No. 3 airline in terms of passengers. In addition to=20 leisure fliers, ATA is targeting budget-minded business travelers with its= =20 routes, advertising and assigned seating. Since April 2000, ATA and=20 Southwest have begun non-stop service from Midway to several important=20 business and leisure destinations once served non-stop only from O'Hare,=20 including Boston, Charlotte, Miami, Oakland and Seattle. ATA also flies to= =20 Mexico and San Juan, Puerto Rico; Southwest serves U.S. airports. "Midway will never replace O'Hare," Parker says, "but it's very significant= =20 to the economic future of Chicago." Says ATA Vice President Dave=20 Aschenbach, "I can't think of another city with such a contrast in= airports." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.pscutt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************