Gordon Bethune Quotations

I was a mechanic in the Navy. And mechanics in the Navy are like mechanics in airlines. You may have more stripes than I do, but you don't know how to fix the airplane.

Watches are the only jewelry men can wear, unless you're Mr. T.

It's the old adage: You can make a pizza so cheap, nobody will eat it. You can make an airline so cheap, nobody will fly it.

No one is going to stick their head out of the trenches for someone they don't respect or trust. You can get shot doing that.

I learned that you can be successful if you get people to help you become successful.

The airline business is the biggest team sport in the world. When you're all consumed with fighting among yourselves, your opponents can run over you every day.

Every pilot thinks they're the best pilot in the world. I think I'm the best pilot.

I just want to be able to get on an airplane and enjoy myself in Disneyland, not sit there worrying about all these assassins.

I've spent my life as an airplane mechanic, pilot, aircraft manufacturer and airline CEO who never lost a life or an airplane. I am considerate of the risk we take every time we fly. I also know we need to fly and always to improve safety.

You don't lie to your own doctor. You don't lie to your own attorney, and you don't lie to your employees.

It's not about market share. If you have a successful company, you will get your market share. But to get a successful company, what do you have to have? The same metrics of success that your customer does.

A bankruptcy judge can fix your balance sheet, but he cannot fix your company.

When you actually take the time to go over to somebody's office and personally thank them - whether their office is in a cockpit of an airplane, or in a break room - that's an actual manifestation of interest in them. You need to take the time to show the people around you who work for you that you're interested in them.

It really helps to know what success is before you get there, and if you know, then you can head right for it. For some people, it's the most money. For some, it's the most power. For some, it's the most girlfriends. Everybody's got a measure. For me, I guess it's having the respect and admiration of your peers.

Grounding airplanes to cover your butt would never have let Orville or Wilbur change the world. We would still be spending weeks to cross the Atlantic to do business in London.

The guy in the airplane goes with you. So he has self-interest to do the good things, too, and I don't know of any pilots that don't have a self-interest in staying alive.

Whether I'm at the hangar or at the airport or on an airplane, I get respect. And that's the best part of my day.

Somebody who knows what they're doing, who has a good track record, they come across as very articulate, bright and looking for a challenge - that's absolutely my kind of hire.

There is no economy without airlines. Airfreight runs the world. There is no Honolulu without an airplane. This is a very complex system. If you take it down, you can't build it back up overnight.

Most businesses fail because they want the right things but measure the wrong things, and they get the wrong results.

You're only as good as your dumbest competitor.

What you measure and reward is what you're going to get.

It all sounds almost silly, but the fact is that the only way to change a corporate culture is to just change it.

We tax air passengers like cigarettes and alcohol - we impose sin taxes on travellers.

If you say three things in a row that make sense, people will vote for you.

It's difficult to have everybody like everything you do. I don't know anybody that's perfect and doesn't have a zit somewhere.

We believe that employees should always be treated with dignity and respect, especially when we are forced to make these tough decisions,

I am doing what I want to do, which is kind of a first. I get up in the morning and don't argue with the government, and I don't argue about money.

For some reason TSA thinks that dumping out our passengers' underwear at the gate after it has already been dumped out at the security screening checkpoint makes TSA look like they are on top of things.

Our focus as management is on liquidating (our Amadeus stake) ... and giving that back to shareholders,

While we regret the necessity for this massive furlough and the substantial schedule reduction, the adverse effect on our dedicated employees and customers and the communities we serve, we have ... no choice.

We really worked our revenue and March came on so strong we overcame a pretty poor start,

You know how Chicago works? You're either on United or American; that's it, ... You take what they give you at the same fare, which means the whole United States would look like Chicago.

While it's great to outperform all of our hub and spoke competitors, we still need to find a way to make money,

We are excited to partner with Alaska and Horizon to offer our customers significantly expanded travel opportunities in the western United States. With only one overlapping route but a common approach to delivering the best service to our customers, an alliance between Continental and Alaska/Horizon is a perfect fit.

To hear all these congressmen harrumphing on TV that this is horrible. Why, these are the same turkeys who just proposed a new security tax on top of all the other taxes they've loaded on the airlines.

The probabilities (of) United, the dominant carrier in the West, buying and merging with the third-biggest carrier in the West (America West) are closer to zero than they are to any other number,

Bookings are OK, but sometimes as many as 30 percent of the customers don't show up,

Continental now has a fleet plan that makes us competitive in every market well into the next century. This latest order will reduce our total cost while providing the latest in technology and comfort to our customers.

The world's largest airline and Europe's largest carrier contend they can't compete without the ability to fix prices and schedules and dominate the world's largest business market, ... This is a deal that just should not be approved under any circumstances.

The nimbler are those that can change. The nimble will do well and the ones that can't change will go by the by.

Around the world, today's air travelers demand reliability, flexibility and high-quality service. We know from our previous dealings with them that the SkyTeam members are world-beaters by all these measures, and we're proud to be part of a global alliance that shares our focus on the customer.

If you take the meat ax to the problem, you destroy relationships, ... And who loses? The employees. The customers. And the shareholders.

You have to begin to put the infrastructure in place to put in high-speed trains...It should be a national priority. If the French can do it, why cant we?

The substitute for knowledge is money.

It's not a testosterone-driven industry any longer. Success is making money, not in the size of the airline.

In airplanes you have a choice between chocolate and vanilla. One year could be vanilla or it could be chocolate. I don't attach any relevance to which one.

We're a stupid industry led by stupid people,

The point is... you'd better figure out what your Customers - the Customers you want - value. Because that's what they'll buy. Anything else is a waste of their money, and they'll figure that out in a hurry.

There are a lot of parallels between what we're doing and an expensive watch. It's very complex, has a lot of parts and it only has value when it's predictable and reliable.

It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out?

Since 1978 the record pretty well shows that no start-up airline . . . has really been successful, so the odds of JetBlue having long-term success are remote. I'm not going to say it can't happen because stranger things have happened, but I personally believe P.T. Barnum was, in that respect, correct.

I don't think JetBlue has a better chance of being profitable than 100 other predecessors with new airplanes, new employees, low fares, all touchy-feely ... all of them are losers. Most of these guys are smoking ragweed.

But I like to think that a lot of managers and executives trying to solve problems miss the forest for the trees by forgetting to look at their people -- not at how much more they can get from their people or how they can more effectively manage their people. I think they need to look a little more closely at what it's like for their people to come to work there every day.

Do you know how much faster I can fix an airplane when I want to fix it than when I don't want to fix it?

I'd rather have 50 people at 100 percent of their pay than 100 people at 50 percent, ... If you don't pay people what they're worth, they'll go to IBM or somewhere where they are paid what they're worth.

The fun part is, the same talk I would give gratis as CEO of Continental, I get paid handsomely for now.