How Zaheer Faruqi turned a garage-based business into a global aviation brand.
When Zaheer Faruqi launched Axis Aviation, a business providing spare aircraft parts, from his two-car garage in Peachtree City on September 1, 2001, he couldn’t possibly have predicted the problems or possibilities headed his way. His first inkling came 10 days later.
As the American aviation industry ground to a halt in the wake of the airplane-fueled terrorist attack on September 11, Faruqi floundered. He was facing the first of many entrepreneurial hurdles—a U.S.-based business without a U.S. customer base—while simultaneously juggling a personal one: having a profile dangerously similar to the masterminds of 9/11.
