MEMPHIS — The view from the chief executive’s office window at Memphis International Airport is as sweeping as it is dispiriting: On a recent afternoon, he could see 10 empty jet bridges and not a single airliner. Later, at the curb in front of the terminal, there were only three cars dropping off passengers, and inside, a pair of moving walkways carried just three people between them.

An empty airport may sound heavenly to anyone who has had to cope with the crowds and chaos at La Guardia or Hartsfield-Jackson or O’Hare. But it is a humbling reality for Memphis.

To walk the airport’s deserted corridors now is to know that its glory days of just a decade ago are gone, a glaring casualty of an airline merger that transformed the American aviation industry but cost the Mid-South’s most important city its status as a hub.

So now, while many airports are desperately trying to figure out how to add more gates, more destinations, more parking, more restaurants and, for goodness’ sake, more bathrooms, Memphis is grappling with the opposite, much rarer riddle: how to shrink gracefully.