Back in the day, if you had to fly anywhere in the Midwest, the hidden secret was to fly Midwest Express. Long after all the airlines had switched to seats that crunched all your joints into new shapes, Midwest Express was still seating people in coach in nice, roomy seats, where they served your food with full-sized metal silverware and your drinks in actual glasses, and gave you a warm chocolate chip cookie with every meal. It was like flying in first class, without the whole paying-first-class-prices and ending-up-next-to-an-overpaid-exec-yacking-on-his-cell-phone problem.

Why all the creature comforts? Well, Midwest Express started life as a corporate airline for Kimberly-Clark execs. Customer service was more than just a mantra they spouted at company meetings.

9/11 and the subsequent airline bust screwed up a lot of the fun: the seats are narrower now, though the legroom is just as good, and I don’t think you can get metal silverware for your in-flight meals any more. But, by God, your knees are still relatively safe, and Midwest Express–now called Midwest Airlines–still serves their chocolate chip cookies.

The good news: Midwest Airlines is now inaugurating non-stop service to Seattle! ^[1]

The bad news: You have to fly to Milwaukee.

Except actually that’s not as bad as it sounds. Ever tried to fly through Chicago O’Hare to get somewhere in the Midwest? After you’ve gotten stuck on the O’Hare taxiway for forty-five minutes for the fifth time, it gets old. Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Field is a lot quieter than O’Hare and a lot easier to fly in and out of. Plus, Milwaukee is the only airport I’ve ever heard of with an utterly cool used bookstore ^[2] in the main terminal.

Thanks, Seattlest!