ATA says No Way!

ATA is downplaying talk that it might pullout of Chicago's Midway Airport

The Indianapolis-based low-fare airline is the airport's largest carrier, and ATA Chairman George Mikelsons said the airline plans to stay. "As indicated in our recent SEC filing, ATA is busy restructuring its finances," he said in a statement issued by the airline's public relations firm. "While engaged in that effort, we are not abandoning Chicago Midway, nor are we canceling any flights."

ATA has 14 gates at Midway, with flights from the airport accounting fortwo-thirds of ATA's scheduled passenger traffic. However, last week ATA, which has been hurt by rising jet fuel prices and high aircraft leases, reported that it had lost $90.7 million in the first six months of the year. ATA has restructured debt, and its 1,100 pilots have agreed to consider more financial concessions after agreeing last month to a package that will save about $43 million over two years.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that a person familiar with the situation, which it did not name, said ATA had received overtures about apossible sale of Chicago-based aircraft, as well as the gates it leases at Midway. Gates include passenger boarding areas. The city's Department of Aviation said the Midway gates were city property and that it could reclaim them if ATA reduced or ceased operations at the airport.

Aaron Gellman, a professor in Northwestern University's Transportation Center, said several other airlines might be interested in taking over theMidway gates, but that pulling out of Midway would make little sense for ATA. "I've never known a carrier to walk away from a principal traffic generator," he said. "It's very difficult for me to see how that could work, how ATA could survive it."

ATA has 7,900 employees, including 2,500 in Indianapolis.