The wag who said he was “sure there was money in aviation because he put it there” might have been Ebby Lunken, who saw a sizable chunk of cash disappear into his beloved Midwest Airways. It was a grand idea and would have succeeded if the income from ticket sales had even approached the outgo from a series of unfortunate setbacks and avoidable screw-ups — gear collapses, belly landings, blown engines, militantly gay station agents (when that was an issue), lost and damaged bags, oversold flights and justifiably pissed-off passengers. On the bright side, it launched a bunch of young guys into airline careers, faithfully paid salaries to everybody except Ebby and gave us a reason to hang out at the airport. Midwest was my baptism into the business end of aviation and of life; for five years we worked all hours of the day and night, laughed often, cried some and cursed a lot. But, crises and all, it was a helluva ride.
His vision was a scheduled airline that could put a business traveler in Cincinnati, Cleveland or Detroit for a day’s work and have him back home that evening for dinner. And it could work because of convenient downtown airports — Cincinnati Lunken, Detroit City and Cleveland Burke Lakefront — that eliminated the hassle of commutes from outlying airline airports. Chicago Meigs would have been ideal until (albeit some years later) the mayor chopped it up and threw the pieces in Lake Michigan. Sure, that was wrong, but Mayor Daley’s gutsy style of dealing with bureaucrats was so very “Chicago” you just had to love it! (Letters, here they come!)
