Midwest Airlines will be down to 23 airplanes soon as it continues to downsize.
But how far can an airline downsize before it no longer exists?
If nothing else, Midwest is turning itself into a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines in all but name. Despite earlier protests that such a situation would never happen, the Midwest cutbacks and subsequent code-sharling arrangements with Northwest means that Midwest, with an additional 100 code-shared city pairs, is now flying about as many code-share flights as they are flying flights on their own aircraft.
This is testing the term “code-share” when an airlines slaps its name on more other-airline-seats than on its own. Is there some kind of limit?
At this rate, if it weren’t for limitations on the merger of Northwest and Midwest last year where Northwest gobbled up 47 percent of Midwest, their remaining planes would be being repainted with Northwest Express or Airlink logos.
AirTran, which lost out to Northwest in the bidding for partnering with Midwest, is exacting some form of revenge by increasing their flights into Milwaukee — where Midwest is based — and juicing up frequent flier rewards for flights to and from the beer capital.
The expanded position in Milwaukee represents a victory of sorts for AirTran, which was rebuffed last year when it offered to merge with Midwest. The two carriers were widely seen as having complementary route structures and aircraft, but Midwest ultimately agreed to be bought out by private equity firm TPG Capital.
Ultimately, Midwest seems to be putting itself out of business or at least planning on a long winter’s hibernation.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
