Gordon Bethune Quotes
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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.
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We're a stupid industry led by stupid people.
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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.
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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?
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You're only as good as your dumbest competitor.
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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.
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Every pilot thinks they're the best pilot in the world. I think I'm the best pilot.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Most businesses fail because they want the right things but measure the wrong things, and they get the wrong results.
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Watches are the only jewelry men can wear, unless you're Mr. T.
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You don't lie to your own doctor. You don't lie to your own attorney, and you don't lie to your employees.
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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.
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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.
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If you say three things in a row that make sense, people will vote for you.
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It's not a testosterone-driven industry any longer. Success is making money, not in the size of the airline.
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A bankruptcy judge can fix your balance sheet, but he cannot fix your company.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It all sounds almost silly, but the fact is that the only way to change a corporate culture is to just change it.
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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.
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The substitute for knowledge is money.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The first step to problem solving is figuring out who's got the problem.
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It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out?
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