AirTran Holdings is roughly a tenth the size of its main competitor, Delta Air Lines. So AirTran executives would seem unlikely cheerleaders of a potential merger that would make Delta 60 percent larger.
But the recent $8.5 billion takeover offer for Delta by US Airways has found a fan in Joseph B. Leonard, chief executive at AirTran, which, like Delta, flies routes across the Southeast from its hub in Atlanta.
“I’m rooting for it,” Mr. Leonard said yesterday in an interview, after announcing his own proposed takeover of Midwest Air, an airline based in Oak Creek, Ill., for $290 million.
Mr. Leonard may relish his role as underdog but that is not why he hopes the carriers merge — he just wants to see fewer jets in the sky. After all, US Airways’ proposed takeover would reduce the two airlines’ combined jet fleet about 10 percent.
Daily Archives: December 13, 2006
20 Business Ideas & The VC’s with Cash
Michael Copeland & Susanna Hamner:
The result is this list of 20 tantalizing business ideas, ranging from a host of new websites and applications to next-generation power sources and a luxury housing development. This isn’t small-time thinking, either: These investors -which include some of Silicon Valley’s most successful VCs as well as serial entrepreneurs like Steve Case and Howard Schultz are backing their ideas with a collective $100 million in funding to the entrepreneurs who can get them off the ground.