Neeleman was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Utah, U.S. to a family of Dutch and American descent. He lived in Brazil until he was five.
Career
He co-founded Morris Air, a low-fare charter airline, and from 1984 to 1988, he was the 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, he worked for five months on their Executive Planning Committee. After leaving Southwest, Neeleman became the CEO of Open Skies, a touch screen airline reservation and check-in systems company, later acquired by HP 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 CEO 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 as CEO 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, a domestic carrier in Brazil. Azul will complete 2013 with over 5 Billion in sales and is currently Brazil's third-largest airline. On October 30, 2013 Neeleman and his youngest brother Mark James Neeleman, a cofounder of Azul, announced the launch of a new company, Vigzul, a home security and monitoring company. 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. In June 2015, the Portuguese Government decided to sell the TAP Air Portugal Group, owner of the national air carrier, TAP Air Portugal, to the Gateway consortium with David Neeleman in partnership with Humberto Pedrosa who take control of 61% of the capital of the Portuguese carrier. TAP Air Portugal will maintain the country as the airline’s main hub for a minimum of 30 years.
New US startup
In June 2018, he plans a new US airline called Breeze Airways as he registered a new entity, raising $100m capital. On July 17, 2018, Breeze Airways signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus for 60 A220-300 aircraft to be delivered from 2021.
Personal life
Neeleman, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, served a two-year mission in Brazil when he was 19. He has been diagnosed with ADHD. He is the father of ten children with his former wife, Vicki Vranes. He is the 2005 recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for outstanding leadership in the commercial aviation industry. He speaks fluent Portuguese and holds citizenships of Brazil, U.S. and Cyprus. The Neelemans have since divorced, and Vicki now goes by the last name "Labrum." According to various news sources, the divorce resulted in a "multi-million dollar" settlement. Neeleman 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."
