Buh-Bye, Midwest Airlines

Milwaukee is about to lose another major company.

It's been years since Milwaukee's economy lost its industrial base and shifted to an economy based on service jobs.

Now, one of the city's most high profile locally based companies, a cornerstone of its new economic era, is about to become history.

At this point, I can't see it playing out any other way.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Midwest Air Group Inc. (MEH) now has three new directors after shareholders today elected a slate nominated by hostile suitor AirTran Holdings Inc. (AAI), and ousted three incumbent directors.

Midwest Air Chairman Timothy Hoeksema said the board has agreed to let AirTran make a presentation on its buyout offer for Midwest. The board has made no determination to engage in negotiations with AirTran, and no date has been set for the presentation.

Midwest Air shareholders elected John Albertine, Jeffrey Erickson and Charles Kalmbach, who are replacing John Bergstrom, James Boris and Frederick Stratton on the nine-member board. The official results of the election are expected to be reported June 26.

"While we are disappointed by today's results, we recognize that our shareholders have spoken," Hoeksema said in a statement released after the vote. "If today's election says anything at all, it says that our shareholders want us to listen, and that is what we intend to do."

Does it matter to Milwaukee that Midwest Air will, in all likelihood, be taken over by AirTran?

I think it does from a symbolic perspective.

The demise of Midwest Air is a blow to the city's stature and identity.

This may not be a realistic reaction in terms of dollars coming into the city, but it seems to be just another sign of a dying Milwaukee.

Midwest's takeover by AirTran in itself probably wouldn't alter the city's economy much.

The actual impact of the takeover will likely be minimal compared to the impact on the city's image of having another local operation go under.

The Milwaukee based "best care in the air" is about to be swallowed up as surely as a chocolate chip cookie just out of the oven.

That's hard to swallow.