Air Midwest was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in May 1965 by Gary Adamson as Aviation Services, Inc. Using a single Cessna 206, Adamson transported human remains for area mortuaries. Later, Aviation Services held out for charter and in 1967 began scheduled service flying between Wichita and Salina.
As Frontier Airlines withdrew from the western Kansas market in 1968, Aviation Services moved in to assume air service. In 1969, it changed its name to Air Midwest and ordered Beech 99 aircraft to keep up with its expansion.
By 1978, it was operating a fleet of 10 Metroliners and was expanding from Kansas and into New Mexico, Iowa, and Nebraska. Mesa Air Group acquired Air Midwest in 1991. In 1979, Air Midwest took over many routes operated by Texas International Airlines in New Mexico. This new service to New Mexico was connected to the Kansas operation by opening up Lubbock, TX. Air Midwest served the Lubbock market and partnered with Braniff Airlines in Lubbock. From Lubbock, service was started to Hobbs, Roswell, Carlsbad and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Service was also started from Lubbock, to Garden City, Dodge City and Wichita, Kansas. In 1980, service was also inaugurated from Lubbock, to Ponca City and Enid, Oklahoma, as well.
In 1985, Air Midwest merged with Scheduled Skyways, a Fayetteville, Arkansas, based air carrier, in hopes of gaining a codeshare to feed Republic Airlines' Memphis hub. Air Midwest would expand by acquiring routes in Arkansas to complement its existing routes in the midwest. Both carriers operated Metros, and Air Midwest had an opportunity to win a codeshare with Republic.
Republic picked a different air carrier to feed its Memphis hub. Air Midwest discovered many hidden problems with the neglected fleet inherited from Scheduled Skyways, forcing the airline to perform a great deal of maintenance to keep the aircraft flying. The merger with Scheduled Skyways pushed Air Midwest to the verge of bankruptcy over the few years that followed.
Although Air Midwest was unsuccessful in gaining a codeshare with Republic through the Scheduled Skyways merger, it was able to acquire codeshare agreements with Ozark Air Lines as Ozark Midwest, Eastern Air Lines as Eastern Air Midwest Express, and American Airlines as American Eagle Airlines in 1985.
Continuing money problems forced Air Midwest to sell its Nashville hub and Saab 340 aircraft to American in 1987. TWA acquired Ozark in 1986 and forced Air Midwest to surrender some of its St Louis routes because TWA already had a code share partner in St Louis, Resort Air (today's Trans States Airlines).
Eastern abruptly pulled out of Kansas City leaving Air Midwest no one to feed. Air Midwest quickly negotiated a codeshare agreement with Braniff (1983-1990), just in time for the second incarnation of Braniff to go bankrupt.
In 1990, Air Midwest negotiated a codeshare agreement with USAir.
On July 12, 1991, Air Midwest published a message to all employees, "St. Louis hub sold to TransStates, all else to Mesa."
Read more about Air Midwest: Incidents and Accidents, Fleet, MesaMax
Famous quotes containing the word air:
“What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)