Howard joins several high-profile sports endorsers on the AirTran Airways' roster, including quarterbacks Matt Ryan and Donovan McNabb; hockey stars Ilya Kovalchuk and Kari Lehtonen; baseball all-star Ryan Braun; pitcher Tom Glavine; and IndyCar racer Danica Patrick.  

AirTran Airways is an American low-cost airline. A subsidiary of AirTran Holdings, AirTran operates over 750 daily flights, primarily in the eastern and midwestern United States. AirTran's principal hub is Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where it operates over 270 daily departures. AirTran Holdings is headquartered at Orlando International Airport, where AirTran also maintains a secondary hub. AirTran was often confused with the unrelated and now-defunct ATA Airlines, due to the similarity of their names, their comparable price points and the fact that they commonly shared focus cities such as Boston Logan Airport. AirTran is the world's largest Boeing 717-200 operator. 

In 1992, the predecessor airline, ValuJet Airlines, was founded by airline industry veterans, including an executive group from the former Southern Airways and pilots, mechanics and flight attendants from the defunct Eastern Air Lines. 

Created to fill the void at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport after Eastern Air Lines' demise, ValuJet Airlines started with two former Delta Air Lines' DC-9 aircraft, and the first commercial flight occurred between Atlanta and Tampa on October 26, 1993. The airline was the first to launch ticketless travel in 1993.