Travel-wise Mark Mastrini.

leads Denver's Trip.com

During this year's summer of discontent in the airline industry, Mark Mastrini suffered his share of six-hour flight delays, topped off by his own parental nightmare of having a 1-year-old son crying for his crib -- all made more onerous by the repeated frustration he saw over and over again in the faces of weary road warriors.

Mastrini is the kind of guy who believes the airlines' argument that 70 percent of delays are weather-related, yet he's also taken his own potshots at carriers over the lack of information they provide consumers when delays occur.

And once in awhile he can play the hero.

Mastrini, president and CEO of 5-year-old Trip.com, was trying to get home from Chicago last summer amid a flurry of delays. Fellow travelers scrambled to gates for information and got nowhere. Mastrini, meanwhile, sat patiently getting flight updates from a live FAA feed via his digital phone -- one of his company's offered travel services. "I was the hero of information at the gate," said Mastrini, who, just as quickly as he was relaying fresh departure and arrival times to grateful travelers, was also able to change his own flight plans. "I was ahead of the pack when it came to rebooking my flight," he said.

Mastrini came aboard Trip.com -- a suburban Denver-based online travel service and technology provider that targets business professionals -- after 17 years at other companies in the industry. A native of Pueblo, his life was turned upside down at age 13 when his father died. He entered a youthful rebellious stage, and his mother mortgaged their house to send him off to Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas. It was a tough decision, but it made a big difference.

"It takes the smart-ass right out of you," said Mastrini, who went on to become the only second-year battalion commander in the school's history, a distinction that still stands.

During those years, Mastrini developed an interest in the airline industry, and at age 19 he founded a regional airline with a military-school buddy. That upstart business ultimately took a nosedive, but it got Mastrini's career off the ground.

"When others were out partying, we would go to the airport and stand at gates and count load factors," he said. "That's how we decided where to fly. We had no reservation system and would take reservations by phone and write them on index cards."

He admits now what a frail system that was, but it gave him just enough experience to join Braniff International Airways, where he quickly rose through the ranks to become vice president of sales and administration. His business reputation -- he was good at turning-around faltering companies -- grew, and he was recruited to lead 800 Travel Systems Inc. in Tampa, Fla., which he ultimately took public in 1988. "We were in, an industrial warehouse with some computers; that was the business -- and it was almost bankrupt," he said. "But the owner counted on me, and I took it so personally that I told him, 'I won't let you down.'" The company broke even in Mastrini's second year, saw positive cash flow the third year, and eventually grew from $2 million to $80 million in revenues.

"It is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time when you bet your career on such a promise," he said.

Mastrini moved to Denver last June to take the lead at Trip.com, a subsidiary of Galileo International. In a sense, his position is similar to the situation at 800 Travel Systems. Less than 5 percent of travelers currently book trips online. Fewer still use the wireless products and business initiatives Mastrini swears by. But he's not fazed.

"I can win with this one," he said. "It's an excellent e-commerce business, has the infrastructure in place, and can mitigate the problem of a six-hour delay"