Entrepreneurialism has been instilled in him at business school in America, and during his time on Wall Street.The combination led him to launch an airline catering only to business travellers.
So, no thanks, I would not be going to Luton at 7am on 10 November to meet a 28-year-old shipping magnate named Stelios Haji-Ioannou whose sole aviation experience was as a passenger, yet who thought he could launch an airline.
It is no doubt a risk to launch an airline at a time when well-known carriers like UAL's United Airlines are struggling to stay in business (see: "Can Glenn Tilton Fly This Thing?").
Hot on the heels of Qunar's plan to launch an airline alongside unnamed partners leaking out, close frenemy Ctrip has announced a 3 billion CNY ($463 million) investment in China Eastern Airlines, a state-run airline that claims 94 million passengers.
He takes calls every day from people wanting to buy tickets to space from him; he explains several times a day that he has built a prototype, and has not launched an airline.
"But if it is looking for consumers, then we might be able to help".David Neeleman, who has launched an airline, Azul, to serve all these new consumers, sums up the optimism that the new entrants to the middle class are creating.
The Ryanair boss, Michael O'Leary, is planning to launch a transatlantic airline offering fares to the US from as little as $12£6.1010), it emerged today.
At the end of 2006 its net assets amounted to just €59m.Air One's owner, Carlo Toto, can claim success in launching a scheduled airline, but he did this before low-cost airlines landed in Italy, and in a market where travellers were glad of an alternative to the incumbent.
Ratan Tata, head of the Tata Group, hints that the scourge is hurting the economy; officials' expectations of bribes, he said, put him off launching a domestic airline.It is tempting to hope this "season of scams" will concentrate the minds of India's leaders.
So in June 1995 he turned his back on his 110-foot yacht and a languid Greek summer, and instead sat next to the toilets in a tin shed at Luton airport 30 miles north of London, launching a discount airline modeled after America's Southwest Airlines.
And Richard Branson Richard Branson, founder of Britain's Virgin Group, is reportedly reconsidering plans to launch a low-fare airline in the U.S. In the U.S., airlines continue to lobby hard for relief.
