ValuJet's Hasty Chicago Flight Leaves Atlanta's Hughes at Gate

ValuJet, the troubled cut-rate carrier that plans to change its name to AirTran Airlines, last week unexpectedly named Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago as its new agency of record. The budget is $15 million, according to the client.
The sudden switch was news to ValuJet’s current shop, Hughes Advertising here, and Fry/Hammond/Barr in Orlando, Fla., which handles Orlando-based AirTran Airways. The airlines’ parent firms agreed earlier this month to merge.
Despite his prior claims that ValuJet’s ad plans were status quo, senior vice president of marketing Ponder Harrison acknowledged last week that ValuJet had been talking to Cramer-Krasselt as far back as March, when C-K’s $7 million portion of the Southwest Airlines account was consolidated at GSD&M in Austin, Texas.
ValuJet will also work closely with C-K’s office in Orlando, where the merged airline is considering having its headquarters.
Hughes took on the ValuJet business last summer, after the May 1996 crash of a plane in...