I'm with you. Tim Hoeksema is a nice guy and did a tremendous job in getting Midwest off the ground and growing the airline during some pretty challenging times (the 1985 crash, the Northwest MKE hub, the 1991-1992 recession, etc.). I'll even give Hoeksema and company credit for managing to restructure Midwest in 2003 without having to seek Chapter 11 protection (and they were within hours of making such a filing).

With that said, some serious blunders were made under Hoeksema's watch. And they pre-date 9/11. Looking back, some of the worst decisions occurred between 1997 and 2000 and contributed directly to the dire situation the airline found itself in 2002-2003 and even today to some extent. They include not replacing the DC9s with new aircraft when plenty of cash was available, acquiring more and more MD80s which were too big for many of the core business markets, expansion into leisure destinations when the fare levels needed for the 2x2 seating just weren't there, some ill-advised expansion in places such as IND, and letting cost get out of control.

Hindsight is always 20/20 of course and some of the points mentioned above appeared to be good ideas at least on paper. Many people mistakenly believe Midwest didn't start encountering problems until 9/11. That's not true. The problems began to surface in 1999 and 2000.