Airlines Furious Over Prospect Of Losing Midway

If the Bush administration has its way, the airport on the island of Midway will soon be shut down for good. That will leave a lot of the twin-engine commercial aircraft operators that fly the Pacific with few alternatives and the airlines are hopping mad.

Midway,where American forces made a valiant stand against the Japanese during World War II, has been a vital emergency landing field for decades since. Airlines complain bitterly that shutting down the airport there would force most twin-engine aircraft flying between Asia and North America to change routes. That would mean much longer flights. Pilots would have to hug coastlines to stay within guidelines for one-engine flights over water.

"It seems like the government has just lost sight of the importance of Midway," Gene Cameron, manager of flight dispatching at United Airlines told the New York Times.

A navy base until 1993, Midway's operations after demilitarization were funded by a private company that conducted eco-tours. That didn't pan out so well. The Department of the Interior has been operating the airport since. Two years ago, Interior turned the operation over to the Department of Transportation. But DOT doesn't want to be saddled with the obligation of maintaining and staffing the facility. DOT has paid Interior about $3.5 million over the past few years just to keep the operation running. Now, transportation officials say enough is enough -- they're unwilling to pay anymore.

Friday, DOT officials said they would plunk down about $300,000 dollars more to keep the airport open until November 20th. In the meantime, DOT will meet with airlines and with Boeing, which helped foot the bill for Midway in the mid-1990s.

While airlines and government agencies bicker over the true cost of running the airport and possible alternatives should it indeed be closed, pilots are fuming.

"I'm really ripped about this ridiculous loss of safety," said ALPA President Duane Woerth in an interview with the Times. "This is an inherently governmental function. They keep trying to outsource this inherently governmental responsibility."

FMI: www.dot.gov