The bankruptcy of air carrier ATA has halted plans for a partnership with Southwest Airlines that would have put Southwest's international hub at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Under the arrangement, ATA would have offered inexpensive flights to Europe from BWI.
The Indianapolis-based airline filed Wednesday for Chapter 11 protection in Indiana U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The company ceased operations Thursday.
The move is the latest blow to the international profile at BWI. Mexicana Airlines and North American Airlines suspended flights at BWI last May. Icelandair cut its Baltimore operations in December, and Air Greenland announced plans this year to pull out.
The bankruptcy of ATA came the same week that BWI announced it set an all-time February record for passenger traffic at the airport with 1,478,396 fliers using the Linthicum airport. It was an increase of 10.5 percent over February 2007.
Southwest Airlines was the busiest airline at BWI in February with 787,984 passengers for the month, an increase of 14 percent over February 2007.
AirTran Airways reported the largest percentage increase in passengers, growing 44.6 percent over February 2007 to a total of 195,483 for the month. |
