12 Facts About Midway Airport

1.

Chicago Midway International Airport, typically referred to as Midway Airport, Chicago Midway, or simply Midway, is a major commercial airport on the Southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, located approximately 12 miles from the Loop business district.

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2.

Today, Midway is one of the busiest airports in the nation and the second-busiest airport both in the Chicago metropolitan area and the state of Illinois, serving 20,844,860 passengers in 2019.

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3.

Originally named Chicago Air Park, Midway Airport was built on a 320-acre plot in 1923 with one cinder runway mainly for airmail flights.

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4.

New York's airport was then the busiest airline airport in the United States, but Midway passed LaGuardia in 1948 and kept the title until 1960.

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5.

Midway Airport was running out of room and in any case could not handle the 707 and DC-8 jets that appeared in 1959; every Chicago jet flight had to use O'Hare, which had opened to the airlines in 1955.

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6.

Midway Airport Airlines arrived on October 31,1979, with DC-9 nonstops to Kansas City, Detroit and Cleveland Lakefront; they expanded greatly in the 1980s.

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7.

Midway Airport was a focus city for Vanguard Airlines from 1997 to 2000.

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8.

Midway Airport is the end of the line, which crosses the southwest part of the city before circling around the Loop.

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9.

The garage is connected to the Midway Airport terminal building for convenient access to ticket counters and baggage claim areas.

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10.

In 2001 the new 900,000-square-foot Midway Airport terminal building opened, with larger ticket counters, spacious baggage claim areas, traveler information, and a short walking distance to gates.

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11.

Over 16 years, Midway Airport had been the main hub for Indianapolis-based ATA, but the airline shut down on June 7,2008.

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12.

Midway Airport is surrounded by buildings and other development, so the landing thresholds of the runways are displaced to provide obstacle clearance.

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