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Save/ShareDavid Neeleman is busy launching a new discount airline—in Brazil.
When we last blogged about Neeleman, he had been forced out of his primary responsibilities at JetBlue when hundreds of flights were canceled and passengers were treated very poorly.
Now he's aiming to copy the JetBlue model in Brazil, offering point-to-point service out of Sao Paulo. The unnamed airline has received $150 million in financing. It aims to take to the skies next year, pending approval, according to Reuters . WSJ.com has the following fun factoid:
Mr. Neeleman, who was born in Brazil and has both American and Brazilian citizenship, bought a small Brazilian airline called Cheta as a base for the new operation. Dual nationality means restrictions on foreign ownership of airlines don't apply to him.
For more on Neeleman, see this post on The Cranky Flier.
EARLIER Neeleman knocked out of his role at JetBlue, the airline he founded.
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Ooops! WSJ is wrong this time. "CHETA" is not an airline's name; it's short for "airline flying license" in Portuguese (I don't know exactly what word each letter stands for, but that's what it means). Neeleman could have bought an operating airline in order not need applying for this Cheta thing (which can take as long as nine months to get), but he decided to hire a Brazilian air bureaucracy specialist instead.
Posted By Ricardo Freire on March 31, 2008, 8:30 AM
Ricardo,
Thanks for the correction.
The WSJ has also updated their online article from the original that appeared on Google News. It turns out that CHETA means
(Certificado de Homologacao de Empresa de Transporte Aereo).
Thanks again,
Sean
Posted By Blog Editor on March 31, 2008, 10:07 AM