Sky's The Limit

Although Homfeld knows how to fight it out with his competitors, he places a premium on using the velvet-glove approach with his employees, whom he refers to as his "family"--sounding not unlike another airline entrepreneur who went from small start-up to huge success. "You have to be caring toward the people that work for you, and you have to be gentle," he says. "You have to realize that when people don't work out in a particular job position, some of the blame is your own, whether it's for not properly training, not properly managing or not properly directing management. You have to look at [the situation] through everybody else's eyes as well as your own. Loyalty should flow in both directions."

And Homfeld gives a lot of credit for his success to those loyal staffers. "I supply people's motivation and overall direction," he says, "but making it work--I've got 1,600 people in my family that do it far better than I could."

If there's such a thing as a natural entrepreneur, that phrase describes Ned Homfeld. The world, it seems, is truly his oyster--so many untapped markets and so little time. "The airline business changes day by day," he says. "You have to flex and bend. You have to respond."

And Homfeld is doing just that, with the intention of introducing flights to the Caribbean and Central America. "We're also interested in routes that go east to west so as to utilize time zones to our advantage," he says. And look for Spirit's Web site to offer online booking later this year.

Homfeld is counting on baby boomer economics to usher in another sizable market in the future. "Baby boomers are going to start retiring pretty soon," he says. "We anticipate having [even] more flights to Florida and other warm climates so their families can visit them."

As Spirit's determined founder keeps a watchful eye on an ever-evolving market, the sky is truly the limit. Homfeld turns again to the joys of sailboat racing: "Knowing the rules, playing the game right, knowing the wind, knowing the boat and how to make it turn faster and lose less speed than the next person--it's your knowledge of your machine that makes you win or lose."

Contact Sources

Spirit Airlines, (800) 772-7117, http://www.spiritair.com

This article was originally published in the August 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Sky's The Limit.