MARK KIESLING: Gary airport is passenger service death row

You have a better chance on Indiana's death row than you do at the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

Looking at the stats for the inmates on death row, the longest person in what is affectionately called X-Row is Mark Wiseheart, who was sentenced to death 23 years and 278 days ago.

The lovely Mr. Wiseheart was convicted of the October 1982 murder of 61-year-old Marjorie Johnson by stabbing her with a butter knife. I mean, really, a butter knife?

She was a regular visitor to the Christian Center, where Wiseheart was living. He took $14 from her.

OK, I think I've made my point there. And Wiseheart is not alone. There are dozens of Indiana inmates on X-Row awaiting a date with the needle.

In that time, more airlines have been killed at the Gary airport.

Let's look: PanAm. Southeast. SkyValue. Skybus. Hooters.

If you could give a Boeing 737 a lethal injection, the Gary airport would be the place.

That's why I'm sorry to say I am not going to bet on the success of Allegiant Air, which announced this week that it will begin passenger service to the Orlando area out of Gary in February.

I'm guessing the death sentence will be pronounced and carried out before the end of 2012.

I hate to be some Cassandra, some prophet of doom. But the track record of passenger air flights out of Gary, in a word, sucks.

I've said it here in the newsroom, and I'll say it again: The Gary airport has tremendous potential. It's close to Chicago, it has easy access to rail and expressway travel.

You can get from Gary to places other than Chicago as well. Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis. It's a gold mine waiting for a miner.

In the biz, I understand, they call this amalgam of rail, air and land travel intermodal. That's where Gary's future is, not in passenger flights.

We've already proven it's easier to live on death row than it is to maintain regularly scheduled passenger service out of Gary.

Boeing, which relocated its corporate headquarters to Chicago in 2001, maintains its corporate fleet in Gary. Obviously, the airport has its attractions and benefits.

Sell those. Stop trying to send people to Orlando or Las Vegas. They aren't willing to go in numbers to support air flights, and that's just a fact of American capitalism.

Send freight. Send corporate suits. There have been no scheduled passenger flights out of Gary since 2008, although to be fair there are charter flights to casinos in Atlantic City and Mississippi.

Go with your strength, Gary. People are willing to work with you.

As for Allegiant, I wish them all the success in the world. I hope they make a go of their effort.

But I'll bet you a sack of White Castles that by this time next year, they won't be flying out of Gary.

The opinions are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at mark.kiesling@nwi.com or (219) 933-4170.