Background
Neeleman was born in São Paulo Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Miami, United States, to a family of Dutch and North American descent.
Neeleman was born in São Paulo Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Miami, United States, to a family of Dutch and North American descent.
Student, University Utah, 1977—1980.
He is also the co-owner of TAP Portugal, along with Humberto Pedrosa
He lived in Brazil until he was five. He co-founded (with June Morris) Morris Air, a low-fare charter airline, and from 1984 to 1988, he was 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 for $130 million (Neeleman received $25 million from the sale), he worked for 5 months on their Executive Planning Committee.
After leaving Southwest, Neeleman became the Chief Executive Officer of Open Skies, a touch screen airline reservation and check-in systems company, later acquired by Himachal Pradesh in 1999. At the same time, he helped with another upstart airline, WestJet.
JetBlue was incorporated in Delaware in August 1998 and officially founded in February 1999, under the name "NewAir" by Neeleman. As the Chief Executive Officer of JetBlue Airways, 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, David Neeleman was replaced by David Barger (born 1959) as Chief Executive Officer 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 (Portuguese for "blue"), a domestic carrier in Brazil. Azul will complete 2013 with over 5 Billion in sales and currently stands as Brazil"s third largest airline.
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.
TAP Portugal will maintain the country as the airline’s main hub for a minimum of 30 years. Neeleman lives with his family in New Canaan, Connecticut.
He is the father of ten children. In 2000, he disclosed to Consumer News and Business Channel that he has adult attention-deficit disorder.
He is the 2005 recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for outstanding leadership in the commercial aviation industry.
He also speaks fluent Portuguese and holds both United States. and Brazilian citizenship. Neelman has said that in the early years of JetBlue, he always sat in the last row in a seat that did not recline, to demonstrate that "pleasing the customer was more important than pleasing the chief executive.".
Married Vicki Vranes, 1981. 9 children.