Midwest Airlines

Midwest Airlines Boeing 717 taxiing for departure at John Wayne Airport (Santa Ana, California, USA) in February 2004

Midwest Airlines is a scheduled passenger airline based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, operating from General Mitchell International Airport.

Midwest Airlines began life in 1948, when Kimberly-Clark began providing air transportation for company executives and engineers between the company's Appleton headquarters and their mills.

In 1969, K-C Aviation was born from this. K-C was dedicated to the maintenance of corporate aircraft. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Kimberly-Clark and K-C Aviation decided to form a regular scheduled passenger airline, and out of that initiative, Midwest Express was started in 1984.

In 1985, Midwest Express suffered their first (and only) accident, when a DC-9 of the airline crashed while taking off from Milwaukee, bound for Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. According to FAA reports, the crash was caused by failure of the plane's right engine, due to engine fatigue. The engine failure caused the plane to stall during take off. The 31 people on board died.

In 1994, Midwest Express opened a second hub, located in Omaha, Nebraska.

Midwest operates a fleet of DC-9 jet aircraft, while its commuter partners operate smaller plane types.

In 2003, the airline decided to change its name from Midwest Express to Midwest Airlines and added the Boeing 717.

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