In the four years since it was launched, People Express has brought no-frills flights to 49 cities. Yet even though it now has routes to London and California, the Newark-based company is still primarily an east-of-the- Mississippi phenomenon. Last week People took a giant step toward becoming a national airline by outbidding Texas Air to buy Denver's Frontier Airlines for about $300 million.
Only two weeks ago, it looked as if Frontier would have a quite different fate. Texas Air Chairman Frank Lorenzo had offered to buy 60% of the outstanding stock of Frontier Holdings, the airline's parent company, for $20...