Will Airline Deal Fly? Investor David Bonderman Thinks So : Transportation: The Texas investor led the bailout of Continental and aims to do the same with America West. He and his partners say they will not merge the carriers but will link marketing and routes.

It’s called the silk-scarf syndrome.

Howard Hughes, Carl Icahn, Donald Trump, Alfred Checchi, Frank Lorenzo--the airline industry has a history of luring tycoons to the romance of the skies only to have them run into high-flying trouble.

“It’s the idea that it’s a company like other companies: You throw the silk scarf around your neck, sell tickets and off you go. It’s a lot more complicated than that,” said Philip Roberts, a Hayward, Calif., aviation consultant.

Fort Worth investor David Bonderman and his partners led the bankruptcy bailout of Continental Airlines and are angling to do the same with America West. Bonderman is chairman of Continental but says he’ll leave the company piloting to the airline pros.

“People fall in love with the business,” Bonderman, 51, said recently in a brief interview. “You’ve got Checchi and Icahn who want to run the business. We leave that to (Continental chief executive Robert) Ferguson. That’s the difference.”

That’s what Continental’s board is doing, said Hollis Harris, a board member and president of Air Canada, which invested in Continental. Harris preceded Ferguson at Continental.

“Bonderman and I both agree that we have to have a good management team down there and give them parameters and then let them run the airline,” Harris said. “I think that’s what he is trying to do and what we’re trying to do.”

Friends and colleagues say Bonderman will probably have little trouble delegating daily airline operations.

“Bondo” is tall and lean and known for adventurous socks, ties and travel and also for an extreme rapid-fire intelligence and for being a generous spirit who has a fierce temper on the tennis court.

“I thought he was one of the ablest lawyers I ever met,” said Mel Garbow, a friend who worked with Bonderman for years at a Washington law firm. “He had the ability to kind of draw and shoot in one motion, and he would get very close to the center of the target.”

The airline industry frequently attracts types willing to shoot from the hip.

Hughes and Icahn got burned at TWA in different generations. Trump’s bankers made him turn over management of the Trump Shuttle to USAir. Checchi saw his stake in Northwest Airlines threatened by the potential for a bankruptcy court filing. Lorenzo steered Continental into its first bankruptcy in 1983 and was forced out as head of Eastern Airlines by a bankruptcy judge.

Bonderman’s investment group took Continental out of its second trip through bankruptcy court a year ago. Air Canada and the Bonderman group got more than half of Continental’s stock in return for a $450-million cash investment.

Now investors dubbed AmWest Partners, led by Air Partners, are winding through the process of buying America West and bringing it out of bankruptcy too. In the only bid for the airline, AmWest Partners--which includes Air Partners, Continental, New Mexico’s Mesa Airlines and Boston-based mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments--has offered $245 million for 33.5% of America West.

America West filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan May 17, and approval by a bankruptcy court judge and creditors is expected to take at least three months.

Analysts say Continental and America West, both among the country’s 10 biggest carriers, look like smart money, apparently having put many of their high costs behind them. And they make a good fit.

Both are low-cost and aim to charge low fares. Their routes overlap little. America West has the strength in the West that Continental needs as it sharply reduces its Denver operations, while Continental pursues a lower-fare service on short routes in the East.

The investors maintain that they will not merge the two carriers and will keep the current managers in place. However, the airlines will do some joint marketing and link parts of their route systems.

“This is one of the very few, if not the only, airline merger where the whole will exceed the sum of the parts,” said Michael Boyd, president of Aviation Systems Research in Golden, Colo.

Barbara Beyer, president of based Avmark Inc. in Arlington, Va., said the deal “strengthens both of the carriers. Because they are so small, the bigger they are, the safer they are.”

Bonderman’s fields of study--ranging from Russian studies to Islamic law--were as disparate as his law career, which encompassed securities, civil rights, historic preservation and a stint as chief trial counsel for Braniff Airways during its bankruptcy proceedings in 1982-83.

Associates say it seems to be intellectual stimulation rather than money that drives Bonderman’s interest in the deal.

“The guy has the most unique mind I have seen. He has the ability to transcend areas,” Fort Worth lawyer Jon Nelson said.

A man who is always running at high speed, Bonderman has been said to “power” his food in a rapid gobble that leaves little room for table manners, yet he is also called extremely likable and friendly.

“He doesn’t shake your hand; he comes up and gives you a hug. That’s the kind of guy he is,” said Jonathan Ornstein, Mesa Airlines executive vice president.

Before Bonderman and two others--James Coulter and William Price--formed the investment group TPG Partners L.P., Bonderman was a key strategist for Fort Worth billionaire Robert Bass. That may have been when he lost his taste for publicity. His taste for fashion has also been questioned.

“He wore the most god-awful ties I’ve ever seen,” Nelson said. “His taste in clothes is in the toilet, but it didn’t matter.”