As Atlantic Southeast Airlines president Skip Barnette maintains, few established companies emerge from a five-year, 25-percent annual growth plan untouched by organizational turmoil and swollen debt-to-capital ratios. So how has ASA, four years into just such a plan, maintained its reputation for fiscal discipline and operational performance while doubling its capacity since Barnette assumed control of the company in 1999? In his modest way, the former Delta Air Lines executive attributes the company’s achievements to its management team and employees. But even Barnette can’t deny his own contribution to one of the most competent and thorough airline overhauls in recent memory.
One might rightly credit ASA’s twofold growth over the past four years to parent company Delta Air Lines, which in 1999 took control of the Atlanta-based regional from its former owners, installed Barnette and embarked on an aggressive network development plan centered on all its Delta Connection partners. Of course, force majeure exemptions from an already lenient scope clause helped that effort, giving ASA access to seemingly unlimited growth potential with regional jets. But few realize that, despite its wholly owned status, ASA finances all its airplanes, carries full responsibility for balancing its own books and manages virtually all its own internal affairs. So while Delta performs most of its regional subsidiary’s marketing, ticketing and route-planning functions, the credit for ASA’s cultural, fiscal and operational renaissance rests solely with Barnette and company.
