^OK fair enough. But I believe the article above is saying the same thing as you.."Chciago doesn't need a third airpoirt" but with a different argument. "Milwaukee IS that third option"..
I have reposted the article here....
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...kee11_CV_N.htm
Milwaukee airport wants to be considered Chicago's third one
By Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY
Mention Milwaukee, and many people would think of city icons such as bratwurst, Miller Beer or even Laverne and Shirley.
But the city's General Mitchell International Airport is quickly putting Milwaukee on the map for travelers in the Midwest.
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Mitchell has emerged as one of the USA's fastest-growing airports by becoming a flashpoint for discount competition. It reported record passenger numbers in each of the last three months of 2009, a year when many other big U.S. airports saw steep declines.
Helping drive Mitchell's popularity is AirTran Airways (AAI), which believes the airport can be bigger still.
The discount airline says it can help turn Mitchell into a long-sought third Chicago airport, joining O'Hare and Midway.
Sound crazy?
Not so, says AirTran, which has steadily expanded its Milwaukee hub the past five years.
"Part of our strategy is to reach down into that northern Illinois area," AirTran CEO Bob Fornaro says. "Within 60 miles of Milwaukee, there are about 3½ million people. Part of the market certainly extends into northern Chicago. So we think there's a lot of potential from north Chicago."
Mitchell airport director Barry Bateman estimates close to a million of Milwaukee's 8 million passengers come from northern Illinois.
AirTran isn't the only carrier operating out of Milwaukee that has its eye on travelers from Chicago's northern suburbs and has thoughts of making the airport one they'd embrace. Midwest Airlines, which also operates a hub at Milwaukee, does, too.
"There's clearly a value in promoting" Milwaukee as the third Chicago airport, says Jim Reichart, director of advertising and brand at Midwest. "There are huge populations of upscale business travelers. That's really what our target's been over the years. For them to come up to Milwaukee is really just as easy as going to O'Hare."
William Swelbar, a research engineer at the MIT International Center for Air Transportation and author of the Swelblog aviation blog, agrees that the lucrative suburban market north of Chicago is big enough to help bump up passenger numbers in Milwaukee. "No doubt the northern Chicagoland suburbs have a rich economic base," he says.
He believes Mitchell airport already is an alternative to O'Hare for some northern Illinois customers. But whether it can siphon enough Illinois customers to stake a legitimate claim as the third Chicago airport, Swelbar says somewhat skeptically, "We have been hearing for 20 years about the draw of Milwaukee to this populace." If anything can make that happen, Swelbar acknowledges, it's the new competition at Milwaukee, which includes the entrance of low-cost giant Southwest in November.
"Milwaukee has never had a carrier with a domestic network of the breadth that Southwest offers," he says. "Nor has Milwaukee ever been home to a carrier like AirTran that seems very comfortable in making secondary markets within the catchment area of a larger hub work. So if Milwaukee is to live up to the moniker of Chicago's third airport, there is no time like the present."
Even AirTran CEO Fornaro acknowledges that the presence of Southwest, regarded as one of strongest competitors in the U.S. airline industry, has advantages.
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"Nobody really wants to compete with Southwest," Fornaro says. "But the upside is they'll bring a lot of loyal Chicagoans with them. That will raise the profile of Milwaukee among Illinois residents who might not have considered the airport before."
It could also raise the profile of Milwaukee as an alternative airport for greater Chicago, much as Southwest has done for Baltimore to greater Washington, D.C., or Providence to greater Boston, says Kit Mueller, a 36-year-old technology consultant from Chicago.
Mueller, who says he travels up to 30 times a year for a combination of both work and pleasure, is a convert to Milwaukee.
Unlike the northern Illinois residents most Milwaukee airlines seek, Mueller actually lives in The Loop in central Chicago — about 90 miles from Mitchell airport. Still, he says, he prefers Mitchell over O'Hare, saying the ride to Milwaukee on Amtrak's Hiawatha line doesn't take him any longer than Chicago's Blue Line "El" train to O'Hare.
"I've been somewhat the evangelist of late," Mueller says. "Whenever we're talking travel, I'm like, 'Always check Milwaukee,' " he says, though he adds Chicago's downtown Midway is still his airport of choice.
Mueller says some people think he's crazy "at first" when he tells them he prefers Milwaukee. "But two people have actually come with me" to Mitchell, he says, claiming they warmed to the idea after giving it a chance.
Having Mueller's endorsement is fine, but he isn't the target Chicago audience for Mitchell and its airlines.
"While Milwaukee is only 70 miles from O'Hare and 90 miles from downtown Chicago, those aren't the important numbers," says Mitchell director Bateman. "For the majority of our customers who live in the high-income, frequent-traveler northern Illinois tier, Milwaukee is only a 45- to 50-minute drive on the interstate — the same amount of time it takes them to drive to O'Hare."
While Southwest may have enhanced Milwaukee's position in the Chicago 'burbs, the big battle at the airport now is between AirTran and Midwest........
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