David G. Neeleman (born October 16, 1959) is a Brazilian-American businessman and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

. He has founded five commercial airlines:

Morris Air Morris Air was a low-fare airline in the western United States, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It began scheduled operations in 1992, and was sold to Southwest Airlines in December 1993 for over $120 million in stock. The airline officially became ...

WestJet WestJet Airlines Ltd. is a Canadian airline headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, near Calgary International Airport. It is the second-largest Canadian airline, behind Air Canada, operating an average of 777 flights and carrying more than 66,130 ...

JetBlue Airways JetBlue Airways Corporation (stylized as jetBlue) is a major American low cost airline, and the seventh largest airline in North America by passengers carried. The airline is headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York C ...

Azul Brazilian Airlines Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras S/A (''Azul Brazilian Airlines''; or simply Azul) is a Brazilian carrier based in Barueri, a suburb of São Paulo. The company's business model is to stimulate demand by providing frequent and affordable air ser ...

, and

Breeze Airways Breeze Airways is a low-cost U.S. airline headquartered in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. The airline was founded by David Neeleman, who previously co-founded Morris Air, WestJet, JetBlue, and Azul Linhas Aereas. Breeze's operations launched on Ma ...

. Along with Humberto Pedrosa and Aigle Azur, he owned 45% of another commercial airline in Europe,

TAP Air Portugal TAP Air Portugal is the currently state-owned flag carrier airline of Portugal, headquartered at Lisbon Airport which also serves as its hub. TAP – Transportes Aéreos Portugueses – has been a member of the Star Alliance since 2005 and oper ...

. In 2017 he became a citizen of

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

Biography

Neeleman was born in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaW ...

, Brazil and raised in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

, U.S. of partial Dutch descent. He lived in Brazil until he was five.

Career

He co-founded (with June Morris)

, a low-fare charter airline, and from 1984 to 1988, he was the executive vice president of the company. In 1988, Neeleman assumed the helm of Morris Air as its president. In 1993, when Morris Air was acquired by

Southwest Airlines Southwest Airlines Co., typically referred to as Southwest, is one of the major airlines of the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the U ...

for $130 million (Neeleman received $25 million from the sale), he worked for five months on their Executive Planning Committee. After leaving Southwest, Neeleman became the CEO of Open Skies, a

touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

airline reservation and check-in systems company, later acquired by HP in 1999. At the same time, he helped with another upstart airline,

. JetBlue was incorporated in Delaware in August 1998 and officially founded in February 1999, under the name "NewAir" by Neeleman. As the CEO of

, his 2002 salary was $200,000 with a bonus of $90,000. Neeleman donated his entire salary to the JetBlue Crewmember Crisis Fund, which was established for JetBlue employees who had fallen on hard times. On May 10, 2007, Neeleman was replaced by

David Barger David J. Barger (born 1958) is one of the co-founders of JetBlue Airways. He also served as the airline's chief executive officer of the airline until his ouster in February 2015. He had been part of JetBlue's founding team and served on the corp ...

as CEO of JetBlue and, on May 21, 2008, he was replaced as chairman of the board by Joel Peterson. On March 27, 2008, Neeleman officially announced plans to launch a new airline,

Azul Azul, meaning "blue" in Spanish and Portuguese, may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Azul'' (Los Piojos album), 1998 * ''Azul'' (Cristian Castro album), 2001 * Azul Azul, a Bolivian pop-dance music group ** "Azul" (song), the title song * " ...

(Portuguese for "blue"), a domestic carrier in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Azul will complete 2013 with over 5 Billion (BRL) in sales and is currently Brazil's third-largest airline. On October 30, 2013, Neeleman and his youngest brother, Mark James Neeleman, a co-founder of Azul, announced the launch of a new company, Vigzul, a home security and monitoring company. Vigzul came from an idea of Mark Neeleman and was founded by David Allred, Brett Chambers and Neeleman serves as chairman of the board and principal investor. In June 2015, the Portuguese Government decided to sell the TAP Air Portugal Group, owner of the national air carrier, TAP Air Portugal, to the Gateway consortium with David Neeleman in partnership with Humberto Pedrosa who take control of 61% of the capital of the Portuguese carrier. TAP Air Portugal will maintain the country as the airline's main hub for a minimum of 30 years. In July 2020 the Portuguese state increased its stake to 72,5 %. It acquired this stake from Atlantic Gateway Consortium, which now holds 22.5%.

New US startup

In June 2018, he announced plans for a new US airline called

for which he raised $100m

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

. On July 17, 2018, Breeze Airways signed a Memorandum of Understanding with

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...

for 60 A220-300 aircraft to be delivered beginning in 2021. In 2020, it was revealed that Dr

John Ioannidis John P. A. Ioannidis (; el, Ιωάννης Ιωαννίδης, ; born August 21, 1965) is a Greek-American physician-scientist, writer and Stanford University professor who has made contributions to evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and cl ...

had not disclosed that Neeleman had funded his estimation of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in

Santa Clara County, California Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

. Ioannidis' results were much lower than official data, thus creating a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

Personal life

Neeleman, a member of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

, served a two-year

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

when he was 19. He has been diagnosed with ADHD. He is the father of nine children with his former wife, Vicki Vranes. The couple have since divorced. His brother Stephen was one of the founders of the American health care company

HealthEquity HealthEquity, Inc. is an American financial technology and business services company that is designated as a non-bank health savings trustee by the IRS. This designation allows HealthEquity to be the custodian of health savings accounts regardles ...

, while his nephew is

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The ...

quarterback

Zach Wilson Zachary Kapono Wilson (born August 3, 1999) is an American football quarterback for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at BYU, where he was a two-time bowl game MVP, and was selected second over ...

. Neeleman was the 2005 recipient of the

Tony Jannus Award The Tony Jannus Award recognizes outstanding individual achievement in scheduled commercial aviation by airline executives, inventors and manufacturers, and government leaders. The award is conferred annually by the Tony Jannus Distinguished Avia ...

for his contributions in the commercial aviation industry. He speaks fluent Portuguese and holds citizenships of Brazil, U.S. and Cyprus.Azul, Brazil Airline Started by JetBlue Founder, Files for I.P.O.
December 1, 2014, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

References

External links

Speaking at StanfordForbes PersonDavid Neeleman InterviewOwner of Azul Launches Home Security CompanyFounders of Azul Create Monitoring Company
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Neeleman, David 1959 births Living people Brazilian emigrants to the United States People from São Paulo Brazilian people of Dutch descent Brazilian people of American descent Brazilian businesspeople People from New Canaan, Connecticut American people of Dutch descent American airline chief executives Latter Day Saints from Utah Businesspeople in aviation American Mormon missionaries in Brazil Azul Brazilian Airlines WestJet people JetBlue 20th-century Mormon missionaries David Eccles School of Business alumni Latter Day Saints from Connecticut People with acquired Cypriot citizenship American people of Brazilian descent