New Braniff prepares for launch
On Thursday, March 1, 1984, Braniff, the successor to Braniff International Airways, and Braniff International Corporation, inaugurated service from its Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport hub to eighteen major US cities. It was the largest single-day successful airline startup in US history.
Braniff International Chairman Howard Putnam had demonstrated his sentiment towards the Braniff brand in June 1982 when he declared "Braniff will not fly again. Go find another job!"[3]
The Braniff Family took Mr. Putnam's advice and embarked on a plan to create a new Braniff. They started their own airline literally from the ground up. Braniff International Airways ceased air carrier operations on May 12–13, 1982, and 22 months later a new reborn Braniff, Inc., was launched.
It was a long and hard-fought battle to put Braniff back into the air. The management at Braniff Airways was not interested in launching a new Braniff but preferred to retire the Braniff name and find a merger partner or a buyer for Airways' assets. Initially, in October 1982, a planned merger between Airways and Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) was proposed. PSA wanted to begin a low-cost, no-frills carrier in Texas with DFW as its base, and the assets of Airways looked to be a promising way to achieve this goal.
The new PSA Braniff would be operated as a separate entity and would become known as Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA). The new entity would use some former Braniff employees and operate a select number of Airways' Boeing 727-200 jetliners. The plan met with resistance from Airways' labor groups but most importantly from the Federal Aviation Administration which was not pleased with the acquisition of Braniff Airways' landing slots at various proposed airports of service. The deal quickly fell through and Airways' began searching for another merger partner.
However, retired Braniff Airways pilots Captain Jack Morton and Captain Glenn Shoop proposed launching a new Braniff that would operate on its own under the famed and well-known Braniff moniker. The two pilots created a business plan that said the new carrier could operate Boeing 727-200s at 5 cents per available seat mile. Initial offering of the prospectus drew little interest, but Captain Shoop contacted Dallas businessman Bruce Leadbetter, who contacted Hyatt Hotels Chairman Jay Pritzker. Mr. Pritzker was interested in the Morton/Shoop Braniff proposal and agreed to discuss a possible deal.
Once convinced, Pritzker submitted a letter of intent, in April 1983, to Judge John Flower's bankruptcy court in Ft Worth, Texas, that was administering the Airways' and Braniff International Corporation's proceedings. Airways' management was not interested in the plan but was eventually cajoled into agreeing that it was the best course of action for Airways' employees, and creditors. Airways' board of directors approved the Hyatt plan on May 12, 1983, exactly one year after the cessation of operations of Airways. Creditors and labor groups accepted and approved the new plan by September 1983.[2][4]
