Air Wisconsin's 96-Mile "Ghost" Flight That No One Will Take

I’m booking it right now. This is way cooler than AF’s new first class.

Thank you for the grin Jacob, your post has put a smile on this Brits face.

Please post a review if you take the flight.

Several years ago, there used to be a UA CWA-EAU flight that was flying at around these same evening hours. The airline, the ground service and the TSA weren’t set up to handle passengers for it. The TSA checkpoint would even shut down for the night well before the ORD-CWA flight would even take off.

Any commercial pilot flying for less than 2 hours every 2 weeks is going to see their skills become rusty fast.

Back in the Midwest Express days I flew from ATW to MKE and changed planes there to fly onward to somewhere else. But I Agree, this flight on weekend evenings is completely pointless and MKE isn’t a hub for anyone anymore.

Do it. I had an empty Saab 2000 to myself once TMP-ARN. Just chatted with the FA the whole flight. It was awesome. Heck, I had the whole Tampere airport to myself before that flight. That was wild.

I'm wondering if Air Wisconsin is going to go the way of Mesa Airlines sooner than later.

Do it, Ben!

They pulled it, it looks like. I was in the process of booking it and just put in my Amex number and it came back as "Flight is no longer available." Refreshed results on two travel sites (another was halfway through process) and it's no longer available.

Airlines should have to pay a (carbon?) tax where the rate is inversely proportional to the number of vacant seats. So if you offer a flight just to keep a license or airport slot alive, and the flight doesn't have many passengers, you'll have to pay a substantial tax.

There's not much fun on a CR2, but this flight would be fun.

This should be a blog meetup trip. Can a community of people pack a flight to the middle of nowhere for no reason in particular? Inquiring minds...

I think Noel Phillips will beat you to this flight, Lucky.

Do it, and temporarily rename the blog, "96 Miles At A Time" with a full trip report.

Many politicians never encounter a tax that they didn't like.

go for it!

Flights like this can also be used for an equipment move/dead head. If you can sell some tickets when you were going to make zero dollars anyway, why not. Combined with the charter flight situation, they could have some corporate customers chartering a regularly scheduled flight, and now they have a plane stuck where it can't be used.

The more CRJ-200s that can get stuck somewhere, the better. The Canadian Torture Tube is unavoidable sometimes when going to regional airports, but they are such terrible aircraft.

The pilots would (hopefully) also be flying charter flights, which are not 121 (tho, for commonality, most 121 carriers operate their charters as if they were 121, but those flights don't count as such)

For the ghost flight to be 121 compliant, the pilots need to have maintained various levels of activity/proficiency. If no pilots have it, then it's off to the simulators to qualify a crew. IMHO, if the airline actually backs itself into this corner, then it's time to close the doors.

Active 121 pilots still have to go to recurrent training every 6 months, regardless of recent activity. To your point, this training is more to stay "fresh" on emergency procedures which are rarely used on ""real" flights.

Is Air Wisconsin no longer contracted to UA? I was a regular - monthly - ORD ATW ORD or ORD GRB ORD - for many years. While Air Wisconsin was not the only UA contractor that flew the route (Mesa maybe?), Air Wisconsin had the friendliest crews and always managed a drink service on those very short flights.

And bring back the ERJ-145?

This is how beloved Midwest Airlines started. Midwest Airlines began in 1948, when Kimberly-Clark began providing air transportation for company executives and engineers between the company's Neenah, Wisconsin (near Appleton) headquarters and its mills. Operating out of the nearby Appleton International Airport, early employee shuttle destinations included Chicago O'Hare, Memphis, and Atlanta's Fulton County Airport. (RIP Midwest Airlines and your delicious cookies).

I am also amused that Appleton (ATW) and Green Bay (GRB) both have flights given they are only 25 miles from each other. For example, you can fly from either GRB or ATW to Atlanta on Delta.

I once flew SFO-ORD with a change of planes in St. Louis on TWA back in the 1980's. The flight from St. Louis to Chicago had all of about a dozen people on an L-1011. St. Louis was their maintenance base and they were just getting the plane back into rotation.

The inverse of a mistake fare

I don't get why it isn't cheaper to have a less profitable but real route instead of this. Or don't they have to fly at all if no one books it? In that case i would assume your flight would be canceled due to "technical problems". Could be a money making concept if this was in the EU 😉

I might have to buy a ticket. I use to fly for Midwest Connect 20 years ago and can't tell you how many times I flew between MKE-ATW. It would bring back some memories.

Air Wisconsin is DOA!
All one has to do is take a look at their CEO. He has tanked at least three other airlines. World Airways, a 66 year old airline was destroyed by his incompetence.

Both ATW and MKE are maintenance bases for ZW.