Which comes first, the Hooters girl or the airport?

By Matt Wood in Miscellaneous on Jan 17, 2006 5:26PM

The Gary-Chicago International Airport seems to have solved half of their own chicken-egg problem: how do you get funding to improve your airport without any regularly scheduled airline service, and how do you get airline service with a crappy airport? Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels announced yesterday that the US Dept. of Transportation had promised $57.8 million in funding over the next 10 years to expand the Gary airport. The money will be used to extend the main runway to accommodate larger planes, build more gates and maintenance facilities, and reroute railroad tracks. Now if they could only get someone to use it.

Hooters Air was the only airline with any regular flights to and from Gary, after now defunct Southeast Airlines (yes, Southeast, not Southwest) stopped service in November 2004. But Hooters also suspended service in December 2005, citing high fuel prices. They promised they'd resume service in March, and airport officials said they believe them because when a Hooters girl says she's coming back, well, you usually wait around for a while to see.

Indiana officials tout the Gary airport as Chicago's third airport. Gary's Mayor Scott King says he has King Richard's support, which makes sense because the long-rumored Peotone airport is the pet project of Daley rival Jesse Jackson Jr. Scott thinks that plus the federal funding gives them the jump on Peotone. We'll grant him that because even without any airlines, he still has runways and a terminal, unlike Peotone, which is still a cornfield.