ATA Closing Its Doors

By Robert Mitchum

After 35 years in operation, ATA Airlines discontinued all flights and filed for bankruptcy Thursday, stranding thousands of travelers in the United States and Mexico, including some at Chicago's Midway Airport.

Once the nation's 10th-largest air carrier, Indianapolis-based ATA entered bankruptcy for the second time in just over three years. The company had more than 2,200 employees, and "virtually all" were told that their jobs were gone, company spokesman Michael Freitag said.

Passengers hoping to leave on a 10 a.m. flight to Guadalajara, Mexico, Thursday morning found the ATA check-in counter completely deserted when they arrived at Midway. Several sat disappointed on benches in the check-in area, using phones and laptops to look for alternative travel options.

"We're totally bummed out," said Tina Rangel, 36, of Chicago, who was flying to Guadalajara with her husband, Curtis, for a weekend vacation. "It was going to be pretty nice. We were really looking forward to it."

Rangel and other would-be passengers said they had received no advance notice of their flight's cancellation, either by phone or e-mail. Jorge Aguirre, 24, of Chicago, said he checked his flight status on ATA's Web site at 3 a.m. Thursday morning and found nothing amiss.

"They can't be doing this to people," Aguirre said. "Just because they're bankrupt doesn't give them the right to do that. They should have given us options."

Even ATA employees were caught off guard by the sudden declaration. Gladys Becker, 50, who worked as a customer service agent with the airline for 15 years, said she received a phone call at 3 a.m. telling her she did not have to show up for work Thursday, or in the future.

Becker and other employees came to the airport Thursday morning to clean out their lockers and take a few ATA signs home as souvenirs. Pam Smith, another customer service agent, said most employees knew this day was coming but were still shocked by the sudden announcement.

"It's a sad day, it's a happy day," she said. "We're happy to move on to bigger and better things, but sad because we won't see our friends anymore. It's going to be strange to not get up at 3:30 a.m., to not see everybody at the airport."

Before Thursday, ATA operated six flights daily out of Midway, flying to Oakland, Dallas/Fort Worth and Guadalajara and Cancun in Mexico. The airline announced last month that it would close its Midway hub in the coming months, ceasing all domestic flights out of Midway April 14 and all international flights from the airport June 7.

ATA said in a statement that the cancellation of a critical agreement with FedEx Corp. for most of the airline's charter business left it unable to offset exorbitant fuel prices.

Customers who purchased tickets from ATA using a credit card should contact their credit card provider directly for more information about how to obtain a refund for unused tickets, ATA said. Customers who purchased tickets from Southwest Airlines for flights operated by ATA should contact Southwest at 800-308-5037 for more information.

ATA's frequent-flier program and all accumulated frequent flier points will be canceled.