Midway Airlines
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Midway Airlines refers to two airline companies in the United States.
Midway Airlines (1976-1991)
The first Midway Airlines started operations on October 13, 1976 at Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois. It was originally intended to breathe new life into the airport, which had lost its scheduled flights to O'Hare International Airport years before.
Following the Airline Deregulation Act, Midway emerged as an early discount carrier. During the 1980s it expanded its services to both coasts and the Caribbean. Midway later purchased Eastern Airlines' hub operation at Philadelphia International Airport and set up a regional affiliate, Midway Connection, with the remnants of Air Florida.
However, this expansion strained the company's financial resources, and it went bankrupt in 1991.
Midway Airlines (1993-2003)
The second Midway Airlines was formed by Jet Express, a carrier that fed Trans World Airlines and USAir during the late 1980s and early 1990s. After an abortive attempt at New York-Chicago service, Midway moved to Morrisville, North Carolina and set up a hub at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Midway's arrival at RDU coincided with the closure of an American Airlines hub there, and Midway inherited American's terminal space, as well as many of its Fokker F100 aircraft.
At the height of its operations, Midway offered almost 200 flights daily from RDU to 25 destinations on the East Coast, and was used by many passengers travelling between the Northeast and Southeast. Midway was particularly predominant at Washington National Airport.
The high-tech slump of 2000-01 hurt Midway, and the carrier abruptly filed for bankruptcy on the evening of August 13, 2001. Thousands of employees were laid off immediately with no warning, and their access cards to the airport ramp were deactivated overnight. [1] (http://www.carrboro.com/midway/)
After Midway's bankruptcy, almost all of its aircraft were sold except for six small regional jets. Midway ended operations under its own livery and became a US Airways Express carrier, focusing on regional flights within North and South Carolina. It ceased operations in 2003 when it was unable to acquire enough capital to stay afloat.
Midway used the IATA airline designator JI.
External link
- Midway Airlines website at US Airways (http://www.usairways.com/midway/)
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