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It’s the Perfect Time to … Launch an Airline?

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Hey, it's Drake.
Few entrepreneurs ever launch a successful airline. The industry is heavily regulated, requires a ton of capital, and isn't all that profitable—especially when a pandemic clobbers all of our travel aspirations. Yet David Neeleman has started four successful airlines, and he's planning to put his fifth into the skies in just a few weeks.

If you don't know Neeleman by name, perhaps you've heard of JetBlue, the carrier he founded in 1999 and led until 2007. His latest project is called Breeze Airways. While the budget carrier has yet to announce its fares and routes, you can expect Breeze to borrow its playbook from previous generations of low-cost airlines, JetBlue included.

As Breeze prepares to launch at an uncertain moment for the industry its founder helped reshape, Neeleman will face perhaps the biggest test of his storied career. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that Neeleman has been outspoken throughout the pandemic about how the world overreacted to Covid. He even told me that masks are for morons. Read my story, or listen here. —Drake Bennett

Neeleman in April

Photographer: Chris Buck for Bloomberg Businessweek

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