Chicago Midway International Airport
Chicago Midway International Airport is located southwest of downtown Chicago. The 840-acre facility provides low-cost domestic travel to travelers throughout the metropolitan area. Through much of its history, Midway was the largest airport in Chicago, and one of the busiest airports in the U.S. Since the 1960s, O’Hare International has taken over that title, but Midway maintains a heavy traffic load, and it operates as a hub for a popular domestic carrier. The airport receives excellent customer feedback, achieving the top rank among medium-sized airports by J.D. Power and Associates.
History of Chicago Midway
Chicago Midway has a long and rich history dating back to the dawn of American aviation. When it was first built in 1923, it was known as Chicago Air Park. By 1931, it had claim to the title of world’s busiest airport with over 100,000 passengers departing and arriving every year. Midway and LaGuardia Airport in New York City would battle for this title throughout the 1930s and 1940s until O’Hare opened for airline traffic in 1955. Midway was not equipped for large jet traffic, so airliners like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 were forced to use O’Hare, diminishing the traffic loads at Midway. In 1967, several decades of major reconstruction projects began to help modernize the airport. The projects included the construction of 28 additional gates through three new concourses, the Stevenson Expressway to bring more traffic to the airport, and a CTA terminal for the new orange line.
Airport Services & Amenities
Chicago Midway International Airport services a wide variety of small to medium-size jets and turboprop airplanes. The most popular aircraft is the 737 series from Boeing. Midway has two pairs of perpendicular runways that are each about a mile long; a smaller fifth runway can only be used by light propeller aircraft. All of Midway’s runways are too small to support jumbo jets, so a majority of international air traffic into Chicago uses Chicago O’Hare International. The largest airliner that is capable of landing and taking off from Midway is the Boeing 757.
Midway consists of one main terminal that branches out into three different concourses: Concourse A has 17 gates, B has 23 gates, and C has 3 gates. A large majority of the gates are operated by a single domestic carrier, but the airport is still used by up to five different airlines at any given time. The airport accommodates more than 18 million passengers every year on more than 250,000 aircraft. In order to make passengers experience more comfortable and convenient, Midways has six family restrooms, 16 art exhibits and more than three dozen food and retail establishments.
Public transportation in Chicago makes travel to and from Midway Airport convenient. The airport is serviced directly by Chicago’s “L” trains; the orange line stops only a few hundred feet from the terminal entrance. Interstate 55, otherwise known as the Stevenson Expressway, is a convenient way for vehicles from downtown to reach Midway more quickly. The airport has a large covered parking garage suitable for short-term and medium-term parking, and there are numerous electrical vehicle charging stations for more environmentally conscious passengers. More affordable long-term parking is available north of the airport, but shuttle service to the terminal makes this option convenient as well. The terminal is also accessible by a variety of city buses, taxis, hotel shuttles, private shuttles, and charter vehicles.
Airlines Serving Chicago Midway
Chicago Midway International Airport is a medium-sized metropolitan airport that is located 8 miles outside the city of Chicago. There are over 255,000 airport operations yearly, and nearly 19 million passengers fly in and out of Midway. Airlines have access to five different runways, ranging from 3,500 to 5,000 feet in length.
The airline has three terminals: Concourse A, with 17 gates, Concourse B, with 23 gates, and Concourse C, with 3 gates. AirTran Airways, Delta Airlines, Delta Connection, Porter Airlines, and Southwest Airlines are situated in Concourse A. Frontier Airlines uses Concourse C exclusively. Southwest Airlines uses both Concourse A and B. Volaris Airlines, which is Midway’s only international carrier uses Concourse A. Volaris has international flights to Guadalajara, Leon/El Bajio, Mexico City, Morelia, and Zacatacas.
The major airlines and destinations out of Midway include AirTran Airways/Southwest Airlines to Ft. Meyers, Atlanta, and Orlando; Delta Airlines to Atlanta; Frontier Airlines to Denver and Southwest Airlines, which has nearly 100 destinations including Little Rock, Austin, Baltimore, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Phoenix, Wichita, Los Angeles, and Kansas City. Pet Airways is the smallest passenger service operating out of Midway. It has destinations to Denver-Rocky Mountain.
The top ten domestic flights out of Chicago Midway International Airport include Atlanta by AirTran, Delta, and Southwest; Denver by Frontier and Southwest; Minneapolis/St. Paul by Delta and Southwest; Las Vegas by Southwest; Orlando by AirTran and Southwest; Phoenix by Southwest; Kansas City by Southwest; St. Louis by Southwest; Detroit by Delta and Southwest and Los Angeles by Southwest.
In the last five years, a number of airlines have discontinued service at Midway including Access Air, Kiwi International Airlines, Northeast Airlines, US Airwaves, and Pan American Airways. Midway has a charter service that operates out of Concourse A and C. Carrier Lakeshore Express has destinations to Pellston, and Ultimate Air Shuttle has destinations to Cincinnati and Lunkin.