The Best Care in the Air Takes off From Appleton
This month I want to share with you the story and livery of another airline that started in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin-Midwest Airlines.
Historical information gives 1984 as the starting date for Midwest Airlines, which was originally called Midwest Express. However, I know that the airline was announced by parent Kimberly-Clark at least a year before the first flight was consummated. A hitch developed in that the original destinations of the new airline were Appleton, Wisconsin, Chicago O'Hare, Dallas, and Atlanta. Chicago's O'Hare airport, however, operates on a slot system. Only so many slots for arrivals and departures are available and it is difficult for a new airline to get them. (In contrast, Air Wisconsin at one time built up such a presence that it controlled more O'Hare slots than any other airline!) So the airline bid its time trying to gain some slots-which it never did.
In 1984 the airline did take wing with flights connecting the home in Appleton, Milwaukee, Newark, New Jersey, Atlanta, Boston, and Dallas (if memory serves me correctly). The airline would soon make a name for itself by serving hot meals on china with champagne. Its signature mark, however, would be and remains still the fresh-baked-in-flight chocolate chip cookies!
The history of Midwest (Express) Airlines goes back to 1948. Kimberly-Clark, a paper giant based in Neenah, Wisconsin (next to Appleton along the Fox River, south of Green Bay, Wisconsin), provided air transportation for executives and engineers between the Neenah headquarters and the far-flung mills owned by Kimberly-Clark (K-C). In 1969 Kimberly-Clark formed a division known as K-C Aviation (now part of Gulfstream). K-C Aviation did maintenance of corporate aircraft as well as refurbishing corporate planes and jets for other companies.
Airline deregulation came with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. You may remember this as the era of PeopleExpress and other low-cost airlines that came. But K-C Aviation decided to go in another direction-an airline tailored to business people with first class seating throughout, hot meals served on china with champagne, and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. Midwest Express was born and took off in 1984.
Midwest Express began with a modest fleet of three DC-9 jets, purchased used. The interior layout became the signature "two across seating." When Midwest recently considered the purchase of new jets, one option would have consisted of two-across seats on one side, three-across on the other side. A survey taken indicated Midwest's flyers did not want three-across seating. It wasn't until 2003 when Midwest introduced its "Saver Service" flights that three-across seating found its way onto Midwest jets.
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