# Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)

> Chicago, US · IATA: MDW · ICAO: KMDW · Large Airport

## Quick Facts

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| IATA | `MDW` |
| ICAO | `KMDW` |
| City | Chicago |
| Country | US |
| Type | Large Airport |
| Elevation | 189 m |
| Cargo | ❌ |
| GPS | 41.78600, -87.75240 |

## Description

Stand at the corner of 55th and Cicero and you can watch 737s clear the fence every couple of minutes: Midway packs one of America's busiest operations into a single square mile of Chicago's South Side. The airport, renamed in 1949 after the 1942 Battle of Midway, was the world's busiest until O'Hare overtook it; today it serves over 20 million passengers a year as Southwest Airlines' leading base. For freight, the honest answer is short: there is no meaningful cargo operation at MDW – the hemmed-in site, short runways and absent cargo infrastructure rule out freighters. Chicagoland's air cargo concentrates at O'Hare, with express volumes also moving via Rockford; both are quick truck runs on I-55 and I-294. Midway's role in the supply chain is moving people, not pallets – and doing so on a footprint that would barely hold another airport's parking lots.

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*Freight Academy — Airport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/chicago-midway-international-airport-mdw](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/chicago-midway-international-airport-mdw)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/chicago-midway-international-airport-mdw](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/chicago-midway-international-airport-mdw)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/airports/chicago-midway-international-airport-mdw/llm-summary*