I had not occurred to Richard Branson, even in his wildest dreams, to own an airline. So the message that a Mr. Randolph Fields had telephoned to see if he was interested in buying one only mildly excited his curiosity.
Fields, he learned, owned a 'paper' airline, British Atlantic, which had applied for the license to fly from Gatwick to Newark airport, New York, on an air 'frequency' which had been vacant since the collapse of Laker Airways two years before. …
