The value of World Airways stock rose 7.2 percent late last week after the charter carrier announced it had landed the biggest commercial contract in its 57-year history, a $116 million deal to provide cargo service between the U.S. and Taiwan for two years.
But Thursdays news came on the same day Delta Air Lines reported staggering fourth-quarter losses of $2.2 billion, despite recent job cuts and wage concessions. For the year, Delta lost $5.2 billion, compared to $773 million the year before, shattering the industry record of $3.5 billion set by American Airlines in 2002.
World, on the other hand, recorded its eighth consecutive profitable quarter.
Local interest in the two airlines is high in Fayette County. World is headquartered in Peachtree City, and an estimated 10 percent of Deltas entire workforce, including many pilots, lives in the county.
Another common denominator often overlooked is Hollis Harris, a longtime Peachtree City resident and Carrollton native who worked his way up through the ranks of Delta and eventually was made president in 1987.
He retired three years later, only to embark on a second career rescuing ailing airlines teetering on the brink of extinction: Continental, Air Canada, and World.
As chairman and CEO of World, Harris made the decision in the spring of 2000 to move the carriers corporate offices from near Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington to Peachtree City. While intended as a cost-savings measure, Worlds relocation also had the side-effect of handing Fayette County its largest and most prestigious corporate citizen in one bold act.
Hollis, who retired again last May from World Airways, was honored for his contributions to the community Saturday night when the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce named him its Business Person of the Year for 2004.
No matter where his various pursuits have taken him, his heart and his home have always been right here in Fayette County, said Joel Cowan, the founder and first mayor of Peachtree City, in presenting the award.
Hollis owns the impressive four-story building at 1 World Drive across from Kedron Village where World Airways offices employ nearly 300 people.
The complex includes an operations command center thats fully staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep track of Worlds 16 jetliners in service at any given time around the globe, said company spokesman Steve Forsyth, who like many of Worlds employees once worked for Delta.
But Brian Cardoza, president of the Fayette County Development Authority, said theres no point in trying to draw a correlation between Worlds success and Deltas woes.
Its two different industries, he said last week. Its good for World that the demand for their type of charter services is so high.
While Delta is first and foremost a passenger carrier, World can be pretty much anything a client needs it to be. Our promise is to have the plane there for the customers on time, fueled up and ready to go, Forsyth said.
But the main difference, financially anyway, is who fills up the tank. The unstable price of jet fuel is largely to blame for Deltas undoing, but not World.
We dont pay for the fuel, the customer does, said Forsyth. Thats a huge advantage for us financially, not being at the mercy of the rise and fall of jet fuel prices.
World also doesnt own any planes, instead leasing the MD-11s from Delta. It also contracts out the maintenance work, and thus doesnt have a costly base hangar operation to worry about.
But because it often flies into lesser developed countries or airports with questionable reputations, a World mechanic is often sitting in the back of every flight, Forsyth said. There are extra airline parts on board, too, just in case.
Many of Worlds regular contracts like the one signed last week to Taiwan involve moving cargo from one side of the planet to the other, but the core business remains moving people, especially U.S. military personnel.
World is the nations largest transporter of soldiers to and from the war-torn Middle East regions, with eight aircraft operating on multiple flights daily, said Forsyth. It has held a contract with the Defense Department for more than 50 years.
We transfer a lot of people around that part of the world, military and dependents, he said. As far as the Middle East goes, we fly wherever they need us to go.
But that doesnt mean flying into the war zone. Forsyth said World flight crews carry soldiers into Kuwait, where the military takes over to get them to their base camps.
For many years, starting in the 1970s, World was famous for being the largest carrier of Muslim pilgrims making the Haj, or the traditional visit to Mecca. But that was stopped in 2001 after the terrorist attacks on the U.S., primarily for safety reasons, Forsyth said.
Today, World Airways handles flights for several major cruise lines trying to get passengers to Europe, Forsyth said. Almost daily, the company makes a flight to Europe for a U.S. client, and World jets go into a couple of major cities in the Peoples Republic of China that are undeserved by other carriers.
In fact, said Forsyth, World was recently the first American airline to ever fly into the Chinese city of Xian, on a charter for German airline Lufthansa. It also gets called on to perform rescue missions, like when third-world airlines have planes grounded for maintenance or diplomatic reasons.
Were truly a global business, said Forsyth. When you talk about the impact on Fayette County, were as global a local business as you can get without manufacturing something.
Cardoza, whose job is to recruit companies like World to Fayette County, said theres plenty of room for a neighbor.
It would be nice to get another one, he said Theres a nice 15-acre site right across the road from them. It would be a prime location for another corporate headquarters.