Northwest Indiana update: the region's top business stories.

• Author: Richards, Rick A.
• Position: Regional report: Northwest

GARY/CHICAGO AIRPORT was the focus of a number of the region's significant headlines during the past year.

In February, Florida-based Southeast AMines started service to St. Petersburg/Tampa, with four flights per week. in May the airline boosted St. Petersburg/Tampa service to six flights a week and added five weekly flights to Orlando-Sanford International Airport Southeast's flights at the Gary/Chicago Airport marked the return of scheduled passenger service in Gary. Pan American Airlines had operated at the airport but ended its service to Orlando-Sanford in June 2002.

Southeast will be joined in June by Hooters Air, which plans to fly from the Gary airport non-stop to Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. Hooters will offer connecting service to Fort Myers, Fla., and the Bahamas.

Airline officials appreciate the relative lack of congestion at the Gary airport. "We like the whole idea of the Gary airport experience and the vacation from busy airports," says Mark Peterson, Hooters Air president. "Of course it also gives us access to the major Chicago market with bottom line cost savings."

The passenger service is beginning to solidify Gary/ Chicago Airport as a viable third airport in the Chicago area, according to local officials. The competitive rates for Florida service have attracted steady business from Chicago-area residents.

Meanwhile, the Boeing Co. last year opened a new aircraft maintenance hangar at the Gary/Chicago Airport. The initial plan was to use the hangar as the permanent home for Boeing's Midwest corporate jet fleet, but the company this spring decided to also bring to Gary its corporate aircraft based in Seattle and Long Beach, Calif. The move will mean about 50 flight crew members and other Boeing workers will be based at the airport.

Homegrown jobs. The past year saw the steel industry settling into new configurations following a low years of consolidation and upheaval. Ispat Inland Inc. in East Chicago is in the midst of a $50 million investment in equipment upgrades that will add employees The company recently landed a state training grant to prepare 100 new and 737 existing employees

Gary's Stanrail Corp., meanwhile, is investing $1 million in new equipment and will benefit from state training for 135 new and 330 existing employees The company makes uncoupling levers, boxcar roots and other items linked to the rail industry.

Elsewhere in the region, those involved with economic...