Airtran Airways

AirTran Airways is a culmination of several airlines and lots of hard work. In 1992, the predecessor airline, ValuJet Airlines was founded by airline industry veterans including an executive group from the former Southern Airways and pilots, mechanics and flight attendants from the defunct Eastern Air Lines. Created to fill the void at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport after Eastern Air Lines' demise, ValuJet Airlines started with two former Delta Air Lines' DC-9 aircraft, and the first commercial flight occurred between Atlanta and Tampa on October 26, 1993. The airline was the first to launch ticketless travel in 1993. In the spring of 1994, barely eight months after launching service between Atlanta and three Florida cities, the airline went public by listing its stock on the NASDAQ and trading under the ticker symbol VJET.

In late 1995, after barely two years of serving the public's air transportation needs, the airline placed an order with the then McDonnell Douglas Corporation to be the launch customer for the MD-95 aircraft (now known as the Boeing 717). Serving as the launch customer meant the airline would have much input into the design of the aircraft, and ValuJet was the youngest airline ever to serve as a launch customer for an aircraft type.

At the end of 1995, ValuJet was named as the top company in the famed Georgia 100 as published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the airline posted high margins with a $67 million net profit on revenues of $367 million. The publicly traded airline stock was increasing in value on a seemingly weekly basis.

The original AirTran Airways, a Boeing 737 operator with service to/from Orlando, was founded by AirTran Corporation, the holding Company of Mesaba Airlines of Minneapolis, Minnesota, operating as a Northwest Airlink carrier with hubs in Minneapolis and Detroit. In 1994, AirTran Holdings purchased a startup 737 operator named Conquest Sun and renamed the airline AirTran Airways. Conquest...