The day after the 9/11 attack, Midway Airlines basically closed shop,
suspending all of its flights and announcing 1,700 layoffs. They had
already filed for Chaper 11 bankruptcy protection; it almost seemed as if
they used the attack as an excuse to close shop earlier than expected. In
fact, the failing company may, perversely, be staying afloat due to the
attacks -- today, their CEO announced that they'd resume operation, and
expect to receive $12 million in federal grant money and another $28
million in federal loans.
Now, Mademoiselle magazine is folding. It hasn't made a profit "for years"
(according to the article I'm reading, cited below), but stayed open. The
attacks changed their tune:
``Mademoiselle was having a weak year, but once the Sept. 11 disasters took
place, we had to make some very difficult economic decisions,'' company
spokeswoman Maurie Perl said.
``We expect, as with most businesses, it will be a difficult fourth
quarter, and we forecast it will be a difficult business year in 2002,
which caused us to make some very difficult, but final decisions, with
Mademoiselle,'' she added.
What possible reason would businesses NOT expecting a bailout have for
closing shop now? Steve Brill's Contentville also closed up, but they gave
a more realistic reason -- "we simply were unable to entice enough people
for us to see our way to a viable enterprise." Are failing companies just
using the attacks as an excuse? If they were failing before, why didn't
they close up then?
Any thoughts?
Dan Lewis
Some relevent links (I'm probably posting this to my website, so I have the
URLs handy):
* Midway suspends future flights:
http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010912/bs/air
lines_midwayairlines_dc_1.html
* Midway To Get Federal Aid Money:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wxii/20011001/lo/916790_1.html
* Conde Nast to shut down Mademoiselle magazine:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/011001/n01353510_3.html
* Contentville's statement:
http://www.contentville.com/
