During the recession-wracked early nineties, Morris Air and Southwest were the only two airlines in the country still pulling a profit. Their marriage was inevitable, at least in the eyes of Southwest, who didn't welcome competition west of the Mississippi. After the $129 million sale, Neeleman -- whose personal payout was $20 million -- stayed on. But it wasn't a perfect fit, and not just because Neeleman was cast as the geeky straight man to Southwest's founder, Wild Turkey-sipping, five-pack-a-day-smoking Herb Kelleher.

"They basically wanted me to sit there and listen for two years," Neeleman says petulantly, "and I was always blurting, Why would you want to do it that way?"

Neeleman left Southwest after five months to help launch a variety of businesses, including Open Skies, which sold his e-ticket technology to other airlines. (Hewlett-Packard bought Open Skies last year.) Neeleman also co-founded a small, low-cost Calgary-based carrier in Canada called WestJet, which is still in operation -- and profitable.

It was during his rocky tenure at Southwest, however, that Neeleman had an epiphany. His youngest brother, Mark, was smoking marijuana and having problems in high school. Mark was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, a neurological syndrome characterized by restlessness, hyperactivity, and the tendency to court high-risk situations. Neeleman couldn't help but notice the symptoms of ADD applied every bit as easily to himself. "But I think it's a gift, really," he says now. "I've seen estimates that as many as 50 percent of all CEOs have ADD: You have no tolerance for boredom. When you find something you love, you apply 100 percent of your attention to it. But if you don't have that thing you love to focus on, you can't focus on anything. You just bounce around, and you're kind of miserable. That's the downside. My wife is always saying, 'Why do you leave your socks all over the bedroom every single night, everywhere but where they're supposed to go?' And I'm like, 'Do I do that?' "

Still, Neeleman admits that his self-diagnosed condition really does make life more difficult: "It's hard to do the mundane things in life. I have an easier time planning a twenty-aircraft fleet than I do paying the light bill."

Last July, Neeleman announced to his wife, Vicki, that they would be moving from their lifelong home in Utah to New Canaan, Connecticut. The Kennedy-size platoon of Neelemans -- their nine kids range in age from Isabel at 7 months to 18-year-old Ashley -- has since taken residence in a 12,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom colonial. "If this whole thing is not an airline, it's at least a sitcom," cracks one Neeleman employee.

Neeleman had been looking for a project as big as his imagination; he'd actually been knocking around the JetBlue idea for six years.

Since the days of the propeller-driven Lockheed Constellation, there has been a definite "type" routinely drafted to manage American airline companies -- the fiftysomething former Air Force jock with growing-out crewcut and a taciturn unflappability. It was in the seventies and eighties that an anti-type -- best represented by ultrashrewd British harlequins Freddie Laker and Richard Branson -- soon emerged to represent this business's "plucky start-up."

Neeleman carries himself with the easy assurance of someone who's had his hand on the joystick for a lot longer than he actually has. He may have a head of prematurely silver hair, but there's also the suntanned, khaki-clad cockiness and hyperlinking mind that sends venture capitalists into a tizzy these days. Neeleman "has a definite Silicon Valley style," says Stuart Klaskin, "creating an aura of legitimacy around a business with a great idea that isn't particularly well established right now. They're doing a fantastic job at JetBlue creating the same pre-IPO buzz you get at a dot-com."

"This is an industry where the failure rate is very high for new entrants," adds Patrick Murphy, the former Department of Transportation assistant secretary who granted JetBlue space at Kennedy. "I keep a book on my coffee table called Deregulation Knockouts, about 82 airlines which came and went in the first ten years of deregulation -- people like New York Air and Air Florida."

Most start-ups tend to begin life with big ambitions, inexperienced management, and a small fleet of aging planes. More often than not, they don't have the cash to stay in the game long enough and survive.