Tony Jannus Award Dinner
Posted on 10/20/2006
On Thursday, October 12, I attended the 43rd annual Tony Jannus Award dinner in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Tony Jannus Award is given annually to the individual who has made a significant contribution to commercial aviation. The honoree this year was Joe Leonard, Chairman and CEO of AirTran Airways. We congratulate Joe on his great leadership of AirTran which has been profitable for 7 years running!
Who was Tony Jannus? Tony Jannus started and flew the first commercial airline which operated their first flight from St. Petersburg to Tampa in 1914. The first flight was o New Year’s Day 1914 in a single engine biplane; a Benoist Type XIU flying boat. The airplane could only hold 1 passenger and the fare was $5. To help it get started the city of St. Petersburg subsidized the service to the tune of $50 a day in January and $25 a day in February and March.
Winners of the award have been such airline notables as Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Juan Trippe, Jimmy Doolittle, and more recently Herb Keileher, Robert Crandull, Norman Mineta, and David Neeleman. Joe Leonard is in great company with these individuals and the Akron-Canton Airport is proud of our Partnership with Joe Leonard and AirTran Airways. The award itself was given to Joe by the 1986 Award winner Frank Borman.
In looking through the program it was interesting to see the various airports who were sponsors of the event. Bermuda, Sarasota-Brandon, Akron-Canton, St. Petersburg, and Tampa Airports were all listed. In addition to Airports two airlines, Continental Airlines and USA 3000 were also listed as sponsors. All of us had ads in the program congratulating Joe.
