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Franke got a law degree from Stanford, then spent three years in the Army after "Uncle Sam grabbed me" and he became an infantry platoon leader. He said he agreed to a request from Arizona Gov. Fife Symington in 1992 to help America West Airlines during its bankruptcy. Franke talked to big creditors like General Electric and Boeing, and ended up being the airline's CEO from 1993 until 2001. He later started Indigo, which focused on investing in airlines. He decided that Southwest's model could work outside the U.S., in emerging markets "as people needed to get off of a bus and onto an airplane, they needed to find a product that matched up with their income level, that gave them air service at a reasonable fare." Besides investing in Spirit, Franke was an early investor in Irish discount carrier Ryanair, which is widely seen as the first of the ultra-discount, no-frills airlines. He also invested in Hungarian discounter Wizz Air
-- which charges 10 euros for larger carry-on bags -- and Mandala Airlines in Indonesia. He has also invested in Tiger Air in Singapore, and in 2010 invested in the discount Mexican airline Volaris. Frontier doesn't necessarily threaten Spirit. The two airlines overlap on just 3 percent of Spirit's flights, wrote Wolfe Research analyst Hunter Keay in a note before the deal was announced. Spirit has its eye on 400 cities where it could grow, leaving it lots of room even if Frontier begins competing more directly, Keay wrote. Shares of Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings Inc. rose 65 cents, or 5.4 percent, to close at $12.54 Tuesday.
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