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Air Midwest Airlines

Air Midwest
Airmidwestlogo125x98.png
IATA ICAO Callsign
ZV AMW AIR MIDWEST
Founded May 1965 (as Aviation Services)
Commenced operations April 1967
Ceased operations June 2008
Hubs Kansas City International Airport
Frequent-flyer program MesaMax
Fleet size 11
Destinations 28 (see list)
Parent company Mesa Air Group, Inc.
Headquarters 2230 Air Cargo Rd, Wichita, Kansas
Key people

Jonathan G. Ornstein (CEO)

Michael J. Lotz (President & CFO)
Website mesa-air.com

Jonathan G. Ornstein (CEO)

Air Midwest, Inc., was a Federal Aviation Administration Part 121 certificated air carrier that operated under air carrier certificate number AMWA510A issued on May 15, 1965. It was headquartered in Wichita, Kansas,United States, and was a subsidiary of Mesa Air Group. It operated flights as US Airways Express, including a code share with Midwest Airlines, and as Mesa Airlines. It served 28 cities in 12 states. Air Midwest was shut down by its parent company, Mesa Airlines, in June 2008.

Air Midwest was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in May 1965 by Gary Adamson as Aviation Services, Inc. Using a single Cessna 206, Adamson transported human remains for area mortuaries. Later, Aviation Services held out for charter and in 1967 began scheduled service flying between Wichita and Salina.

As Frontier Airlines withdrew from the western Kansas market in 1968, Aviation Services moved in to assume air service. In 1969, it changed its name to Air Midwest and ordered Beech 99 aircraft to keep up with its expansion.

By 1978, it was operating a fleet of 6 Metroliners linking smaller cities throughout Kansas to Wichita, Kansas City, MO, and Denver, CO. With airline deregulation in late 1978 Air Midwest saw many expansion opportunities and made a bold move by ordering 10 more metroliners. On March 1, 1979, Air Midwest began operating several new routes in New Mexico formerly flown by Texas International Airlines. This new service to New Mexico was connected to the Kansas operations by serving Lubbock, Texas where Air Midwest partnered with Braniff Airlines. From Lubbock, service was started to Hobbs, Roswell, Carlsbad, and Albuquerque, New Mexico as well as from Albuquerque to Clovis, NM. Service was also started from Lubbock, to Garden City, Dodge City, and Wichita, Kansas. In July 1979, service was inaugurated from Lubbock and Wichita, to Ponca City, Enid, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1980/1981 Air Midwest again expanded with new routes from Albuquerque to Alamogordo, Silver City, and Farmington, New Mexico formerly flown by Frontier Airlines. A new link to Wichita was also created via Clovis and Amarillo. Routes were also expanded from both the Kansas City International airport and the Kansas City Downtown airport to new cities in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Oklahoma. In 1982 all Lubbock service was discontinued and transferred to Midland/Odessa, Texas. Beginning in 1984, competitor Mesa Airlines began aggressive expansion throughout New Mexico and Texas and Air Midwest made the decision to discontinue all routes in this area by early 1986. They then shifted their focus to building newly acquired code share relationships with major airlines listed below.


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