12 Facts About Midway Airport

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.

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.

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

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.

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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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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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