Has anyone had any experience flying on Midwest Express?

tubapress · Post by **tubapress** » Wed May 18, 2005 4:27 pm

I will be flying Midwest Express next month with my tubas. I am wondering if anyone here has done so before and about your experience with the handling of your instruments.

Any feedback would be great.

Merci!

Leland · Post by **Leland** » Wed May 18, 2005 4:51 pm

I know that I made a post about Midwest Express, but I have to say that I have not flown with any of my instruments.

On some flights, though, they'll use a short hop partner airline under the label Midwest Connect, and those have been some smaller, sometimes prop-driven aircraft. If it turns out that Midwest Express proper has a good, consistent policy on large instruments on their regular airliners, making sure that it'll simply fit on a smaller plane might be an issue.

Certainly worth looking into.

tubapress · Post by **tubapress** » Wed May 18, 2005 4:55 pm

Leland wrote:I know that I made a post about Midwest Express, but I have to say that I have not flown with any of my instruments.

On some flights, though, they'll use a short hop partner airline under the label Midwest Connect, and those have been some smaller, sometimes prop-driven aircraft. If it turns out that Midwest Express proper has a good, consistent policy on large instruments on their regular airliners, making sure that it'll simply fit on a smaller plane might be an issue.

Certainly worth looking into.

I believe my flights are on MD-80s, so plane size should not pose an issue in this case. I am just hopeful they don't decide to play "shotput" with my tubas.

brianf · Post by **brianf** » Wed May 18, 2005 7:18 pm

I have flown Midwest to many shows but I always borrow a horn on the other end - sorry. Just a few things:

They pay attention to baggage weight even to the point that I tried bribing a skycap to let a bag three pounds over go through. He wouldn't take the bribe - didn't think that was possible but this was Milwaukee!

In some other cities, Midwest hires another airline to do their ground work, for example in Vegas they subcontract to Northwest. Since they are subcontracted, they might take shortcuts that they normally would not do with their own airline.

I've had more trouble with security in Milwaukee than any other place. The best one was when I brought a compound gauge through and they declared it a leathal weapon - it was the original gauge Mr Jacobs made! Had to check it. Next trip they cot me for a 1" dull knife on my keychain.

It's to bad it's not the old days with Midwest. They use to have the best food on any airline plus all first class seating. The best thing is the cookies they cook on board - nothing like a hot cookie with milk at 35,000 feet!