Passengers and employees showed up at Midway Airport today to find that ATA Airlines, code TZ, has filed for Chapter 11 and is ceasing operations. Earlier this week, Aloha Airlines (code AQ) shut down in Hawaii. We only had a few passengers affected by the AQ shutdown, but may have quite a few more on TZ, although they’d announced they were pulling out of Midway Airport a while back.

I flew on ATA to Maui with a group of friends once. And once was all it took, as that was the first time I encountered a surly flight attendant who barked orders at boarding passengers like a drill sergeant. There seems to be a pattern…  on our flight, only the people on the starboard side of the aircraft could watch the movie, because the sound was busted port side (because “some people were using non-FAA approved headsets instead of renting those provided for our convenience by ATA.” )

It was ridiculous, and we never flew them again on any of our subsequent trips to Maui, or anywhere.

ATA Airlines

After filing for Chapter 11 on April 2, 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis, IN, ATA Airlines has discontinued all operations and cancelled all current and future flights. Following the loss of a key contract for our military charter business, it became impossible for ATA to continue operations. Unfortunately, we were not in a position to provide our customers or others with advance notice.

Meanwhile, Southwest (WN) is in big big trouble with the FAA too, and a suddenly energized Congress is hauling them in for hearings today over some cozy relationship between the airline and an FAA inspector that apparently liked them a lot.

United’s flight cancellations for safety inspections continue, Delta has some going on, and oh boy, we’re flying American in a month or so.  It’s going to be a somewhat turbulent day at work today. What next?