FedEx Corp. has won an appeal that overturns a $66 million verdict in favor of defunct Indianapolis airline ATA Airlines Inc.

Richard Young rules that the $66 million verdict against FedEx was rational and "not monstrously excessive."

ATA charged in the two-year-old breach-of-contract suit that FedEx’s unexpected decision in January 2008 to drop it as a military-charter partner forced it into bankruptcy liquidation that spring.

An Indianapolis jury has returned a $65.9 million verdict against Memphis-based FedEx in a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought in 2008 by now-defunct ATA Airlines.

The Indianapolis Colts’ second trip to the Super Bowl in Miami is scoring business for the locally based Ambassadair travel club.

Any hopes that hometown airline ATA would make a comeback and eventually resume scheduled service from Indianapolis were dashed April 2, when it filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations.

Southwest is striking a deal to acquire ATA's valuable landing slots at LaGuardia and most of the dying airlines' remaining assets for $7.5 million.

Former ATA Airlines employees are trying to comb the wreckage of the bankrupt carrier, looking to grab their financial belongings before managers and lenders cart off what little is left. Pilots and flight attendants are opposing retention bonuses for managers who will spend the next several months turning out the lights of the 35-year-old carrier.

The writing has been on the wall that Indianapolis might lose the headquarters for ATA Airlines and/or parent Global Aero Logistics ever since April, when Global said it was buying Georgia-based World Air Holdings. Now, the writing is on paper: Indianapolis has lost another headquarters.

More than 18 months after flying out of a bankruptcy reorganization that unloaded $1 billion of debt and costly aircraft leases, the parent of ATA Airlines still finds landing a profit elusive. Indianapolis-based Global Aero Logistics posted a loss of $46.1 million in the first half of 2007, according to documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.