Midway Airlines filed for bankruptcy reorganisation in early August, and it said it would take 17 aircraft from its fleet, keeping 12 Boeing 737s and 11 Bombardier CRJs. It ended service to nine of the 28 airports it flies to, cutting daily departures from 230 to 126. Its traffic had fallen by as much as 17% in June, a month in which it lost $6 million, bringing first-half losses to $15 million.
Battered by what it called the "calamitous drop" in business travel, Midway also lost its code-share marketing pact with American Airlines earlier this year after demands from American's pilots.
American has since moved regional jets to Midway's Raleigh/Durham Airport base, an American hub until the mid-1990s. Midway had also been hit hard by low-fare competition since June 1999, when Southwest Airlines moved in to Raleigh/Durham. The airline had moved to the airport in the heart of the North Carolina research triangle when American pulled down its hub there in 1995. With an American frequent-flier tie-up it had become a business travel-oriented carrier. But the Allied Pilots Association forced American to end the code share on 1 May, and Midway also suffered high costs of rapid expansion and operating and maintaining its Fokker 100 fleet, all of which are to be retired.
Source: Airline Business
