Business

MILWAUKEE (AP) ― Two months after its attempt to buy Midwest Airlines was rebuffed, AirTran Airways is planning a significant expansion in Midwest's home town.

On Wednesday, a a Milwaukee County Board committee will consider AirTran's request to double to four the number of gates it occupies at Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.

The move is part of AirTran's stated goal of eventually adding 74 daily departures and 27 new destinations from the county-owned airport. But vice president Kevin Healy declined to discuss plans for the extra gates, including the destinations that might be added.

"I can't tell you that. To places people want to go," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday, adding that the move would be completed "before Thanksgiving."

If AirTran is successful in its bid to expand in Milwaukee, the Orlando, Fla.-based airline will have larger operations only at its Atlanta hub and in Orlando and Baltimore.

Under the plan, AirTran's monthly rent would increase from about $17,000 to about $23,000.

The matter is scheduled to be considered by the County Board's Committee on Transportation, Public Works and Transit on Wednesday.

AirTran lost an unsolicited bid for Midwest in August when the Wisconsin carrier agreed to be purchased by a TPG Capital, a private equity firm in Fort Worth, Texas. Because Northwest Airlines would have a 47 percent stake in the deal, federal antitrust regulators are exposing the deal to increased scrutiny.

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a second request for information on the deal earlier this month. Even so, Midwest said it will go ahead with its special shareholders meeting to approve the sale on Oct. 30 in Milwaukee.

AirTran "probably learned quite a bit about the Milwaukee market, having studied the Midwest deal for as long as they did," said Bob Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co., an airline-consulting firm in Port Washington, N.Y.

"They may have concluded that with or without Midwest, it would be in their interest for them to grow more rapidly and perhaps use Milwaukee as a focus city."

AirTran has nine flights a day from Mitchell, serving Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas and Orlando.

The company has said previously it plans to expand to a dozen daily flights by the end of the year, adding service to Phoenix, Fort Myers and Tampa.

Mann speculated that AirTran might consider installing nonstop service to the West Coast because its fleet of Boeing 737 jets can easily make the flight. Midwest has limited nonstop service to the West Coast from Milwaukee because its fleet is composed mainly of Boeing 717s, which can't make the trip.

An airline typically schedules six to eight daily flights from a gate, Mann said. That means AirTran could have 24 to 32 flights a day if it gets four gates at Mitchell.

AirTran is the third-largest carrier at Mitchell with a market share of 7.3 percent. Milwaukee-based Midwest has a 55.2 percent share while Northwest Airlines of Eagan, Minn., is second with 13.1 percent.

If AirTran's request is approved, Mitchell would be left with three unoccupied gates.

Midwest's chief marketing officer said AirTran's expansion proposal was a non-issue.

"I don't think there is any new news here," said Scott Dickson, also a senior vice president. "They are doing a very small number of flights out of here, even with the added ones."

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