Collapse of deal dooms ATA
Staggered by a broken deal with cargo hauler FedEx, ATA Airlines suddenly grounded its fleet of 29 jet airplanes Thursday and closed forever, idling 560 employees in Indianapolis and ending a 35-year run as the hometown air carrier.
ATA refiled for protection from creditors, about 25 months after emerging from a painful Chapter 11 reorganization that sharply scaled down what was once the city’s leading airline.
Hampered by unprofitable routes, ATA lost $75 million last year and was in talks with five potential suitors when FedEx, with apparently little explanation, decided to cut off the Indianapolis carrier’s only money maker: military charters.
Today, ATA restructuring chief Steven Turoff is scheduled to ask a federal bankruptcy judge in New Albany to let ATA sell off what it owns and get out of leases on the airplanes it has flown on regular passenger routes and global military charters.
The decision to liquidate the entire 2,300-employee company, announced at 4 a.m. Thursday by ATA owner Global Aero Logistics, stranded U.S. troops and their dependents on one flight and stunned employees who had stood by ATA through the previous 16-month bankruptcy.
“It’s sad it had to come to this,” said Jacki Pritchett, an ATA flight attendant since the 1970s. “I’m just going to move to California and see what the next phase of my life brings. I don’t have any desire to go to another carrier. Other airline jobs would just be a job. Bless George Mikelsons. He made this airline an adventure.”
One of Indiana’s few companies doing business throughout the world, ATA was the brainchild of immigrant airline pilot J. George Mikelsons, a Latvian emigre who grew wealthy expanding ATA into the nation’s No. 10 passenger carrier.
Its roots were passenger charters that led the carrier, earlier known as American Trans Air, to branch out into troop charters. ATA operates a $340 million-a-year airborne bus line ferrying troops and their families to and from places where the U.S. military stations troops worldwide.
Tags: air, ata
Well, congrats. I’m back and it sucked as much as predicted. The party I mean. Still love my wife though.
If you have problems with longevity, maybe sex shouldn’t be something you worry about.
That comment is exactly how I feel. I still hate you anyway.
That was a very long winded way of saying you are a virgin
I didn’t stay home last night and had a blast.A woman fell from the roof through the skylight onto the dance floor on the 2nd floor and they had to evac everyone, end the party.So we went to another party. Which was lame, and I didn’t get laid.
I named my WoW character after your comment. =)
Watch out for topless chicks, whatever you do, don’t show them your penis–its a trap!
Does it count if I’m a drunk idiot going to someone else’s house where there will be only a handful of other drunk idiots?
I will be one of those “drunk idiots” enjoying the new year–at a pajama party.Want to rethink that post?
I will be, but not as many as thousands.
Uh, no. When I later reflect on my life I don’t want to remember it as me sitting on my ass all alone reading Reddit. Instead I’ll be standing up playing Guitar Hero all alone.
First post, 2008!! Suckers. Only 4 more years until 2012 when the polar shift occurs or when Planet X crashes into us. Unless Ron Paul can save us. Cheers!
So open your own strip club. That takes care of the long run.