Hi lebowski,

Midwest was actually going through some rough times before 9/11 happened, and things only proceeded to get worse from that point on.

Looking back, it was clear that the economy was going down hill in 2000. For an airline like Midwest, it was an especially difficult time because business traffic and thus yields weakened significantly.

At the same time, Midwest stumbled badly with its short-lived Indianapolis focus city. They lost a ton of money on this venture and it helped contribute to one of the airline's first quarterly losses.

Despite that, Kansas City was still posting some big numbers for Midwest and it made perfect sense to expand further. Unfortunately, with the economic down-turn well under way, yield dried-up quickly and most of the new additions (New Orleans, Atlanta, etc.) performed poorly. Then 9/11 happened and traffic at Kansas City fell-off a cliff. With Midwest's own financial fortunes getting desperate with each passing day, they made the correct decision to suspend or discontinue alot of the Kansas City flying in late 2002/early 2003.

If all of the flights were still intact, Midwest would have a much bigger operation in Kansas City today (probably close to 50 flights).

Also, Midwest (via Skyway) had a little focus city in Grand Rapids as well. Flights varied, but at one time or another service was offered to Newark, LaGuardia, Washington National, Columbus, and Milwaukee.