bonus for Flyi execs 2.1 million

[jetdriven]

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Independence Air, which will stop flying on Thursday, is proposing $3.2 million in estimated bonuses to keep key employees on the job as it winds down its corporate operations, bankruptcy records showed.
The judge overseeing the airline's bankruptcy in Delaware would have to approve the plan, which proposes $5.1 million salaries and bonuses for 180 people. Most of those covered by the retention plan would be out of a job within eight weeks.

But most of the money -- including $2.1 million in bonuses -- would go to roughly 22 executives and other workers who remain in salaried positions for at least six months.

The bonuses would equal one year's base pay and would be in lieu of severance. Fewer than 10 officers are expected to remain with the company for more than 12 weeks, the airline said.

Independence said in a filing this week it hopes the plan would encourage employees to complete the job of closing down the carrier's operations and bankruptcy case "properly, prudently and as efficiently as possible."

Retention payments have been used in bankruptcy to keep executives and other employees in vital positions during restructuring or liquidation. Companies argue that executives who stay on will miss out on other job opportunities and should be compensated.

 

[VADriver]

This dedication goes out to Tom Moore

I was born to run,
I was born to dream,
The craziest boy you ever seen,
I gotta do it my way,
Or no way at all.

And I was here to please,
I’m even on knees
Makin love to whoever I please,
I gotta do it my way,
Or no way at all.

And then you came around,
Tried to tie me down,
I was such a clown,
You had to have it your way,
Or no way at all.

Well I’ve had all I can take,
I can’t take it no more,
I’m gonna pack my bags and fly......baby,
Or no way at all.

So why don’t you turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
I gotta do it my way,
Or no way at all.

Why don’t you turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
I gotta do it my way,
I wanna fly.

I’m here to please,
I’m even on my knees,
Makin love to whoever I please,
I gotta do it my way,
I gotta do it my way,
And when you came around,
You tried to tie me down,
I was such a clown,
You had to have it your way,
Well I’m sayin no way,

So why don’t you turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
I gotta do it my way,
Or no way at all.

Why don’t you turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
Turn me lose,
I gotta do it my way,
I wanna fly.

 

[Rogue5]

"Go on, take the money and run..."

Independence CEO says he doesn't regret gamble
By Marilyn Adams, USA TODAY

The chief of Independence Air, which shuts down tonight, has no regrets about his failed experiment to create the industry's first discount airline flying 50-seat jets.

CEO Kerry Skeen said in an interview Wednesday that launching Independence Air from suburban Washington's Dulles airport in 2004 made sense "based on the facts at the time." Independence, which is shutting down because it's out of cash, was the first U.S. airline to charge discount fares for seats on small regional jets. Independence had $300 million in start-up capital but never turned a profit.

Today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Independence will ask a judge to approve a liquidation.

Most of Independence's 2,700 remaining employees will go on unemployment benefits, while Skeen stands to receive a hefty sum. Securities filings show the company contributed more than $2.8 million over the last decade to his deferred compensation plan. The company declined to specify the current value. Shares in Independence parent Flyi are essentially worthless.

Skeen, 53, was the champion and chief cheerleader of Independence's unorthodox business plan. Previously called Atlantic Coast Airlines, the carrier flew for 14 years as a partner to United Airlines, feeding passengers from midsize cities to longer United flights departing from Dulles.

When United filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and tried to trim Atlantic Coast's contract to cut costs, Skeen and his team opted to break away instead and rebrand Atlantic Coast as a low-fare carrier called Independence Air. In late 2003, Skeen and his board also rejected an unsolicited $512 million buyout offer from fellow regional carrier Mesa Air Group.

The sale to Phoenix-based Mesa would've created the USA's biggest regional airline, one with a long-term contract feeding United. Instead, Skeen and his team went forward with their new airline. They codenamed it Goldilocks.

Skeen declined to say whether he regrets passing up the Mesa offer. Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein called Independence's demise "a very unfortunate situation that could have been avoided."

Successful low-fare carriers Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue fly full-size jets that spread costs over more than 100 passengers. But when Independence launched in June 2004, Skeen and his advisers were banking on Northern Virginia's big population of affluent travelers to make their small-plane strategy work. The market, he said, was "screaming" for low fares. Washington and Virginia residents had to drive to Baltimore to catch Southwest flights.

Skeen says the past 18 months have taught him painful lessons. Crude oil prices spiked to $70 a barrel during Independence's short life, and rivals such as giants United, Delta and US Airways added flights and dropped ticket prices to combat the upstart. For January through September, Independence posted a loss margin of 77%.

"It's a brutal industry," Skeen said.

Contributing: Gary Strauss

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

"It's a brutal industry," Skeen said.

Thanks Kerry.. What a brilliant quote. I'm sure it will endure. Let's place it with the rest of the quotes.... See a trend? Now go sell some widget in another industry. We need real Air Line Men, not dollar gophers...

"Bums on seats" was how Captain Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines liked to describe the airline business.​

First Europe, and then the globe, will be linked by flight, and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next-door neighbors. . . . What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world.

— Claude Grahame-White, 1914.​

A commercial aircraft is a vehicle capable of supporting itself aerodynamically and economically at the same time.

— William B. Stout, designer of the Ford Tri-Motor.​

I was engaged in what I believe to be the most thrilling industry in the world — aviation. My heart still leaps when I see a tiny two-seater plane soaring gracefully through the sky. Our great airlines awe me. Yet I know they were not produced in a day or a decade.

— William A. "Pat" Patterson, CEO United Airlines.​

Once you get hooked on the airline business, it's worse than dope.​

— Ed Acker, while Chairman of Air Florida​

These days no one can make money on the goddang airline business. The economics represent sheer hell.

— C. R. Smith, President of American Airlines.​

A recession is when you have to tighten your belt; depression is when you have no belt to tighten. When you've lost your trousers - you're in the airline business.

— Sir Adam Thomson​

You cannot get one nickel for commercial flying.

— Inglis M. Uppercu, founder of the first American airline to last more than a couple of months, Aeromarine West Indies Airways, 1923.​

If the Wright brother were alive today Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.

— Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, 'USA Today,' 8 June 1994.​

People who invest in aviation are the biggest suckers in the world.

— David G. Neeleman, after raising a record $128 million to start New Air (the then working name for what became JetBlue Airways), quoted in 'Business Week,' 3 May 1999.​

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.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, regards the 70% rise in JetBlue's stock price in the days after its IPO. Continental's annual shareholder meeting, 17 April 2002.​

As of 1992, in fact — though the picture would have improved since then — the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country's airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero.​

— Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, interview 1999.​

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.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, 'Time' magazine, June 2002.​

Every other start-up wants to be another United or Delta or American. We just want to get rich.​

— Robert Priddy, ValuJet CEO, 1996.​

I'm flying high and couldn't be more confident about the future.

— Freddy Laker, Laker Airways, 3 days before the collapse of Laker Airways, 3 February 1982.​

This is a nasty, rotten business.​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

They don't realize that while you're sitting here talking, someone is Fricking you. Changing a fare, changing a flight, moving something. There's no autopilot, and that's why I've seen a lot of guys come and go.

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, regards his peers at other airlines, 'Fortune' magazine 18 October 2004.​

Most executives don't have the stomach for this stuff.​

— Robert W. Baker, American Airlines.​

Today, the situation is exacerbated with costs exceeding revenues at four times the pre-September 11 rate. Today, we are literally hemorrhaging money. Clearly this bleeding has to be stopped - and soon - or United will perish sometime next year.

— James Goodwin, chairman and CEO of United's parent company UAL. The unions of the (at the time) employee owned company forced his replacement. 17 October, 2001​

I didn't take this job to preside over a bankruptcy. I refuse to accept that United Airlines is collateral damage from Sept. 11.

— Jack Creighton, new chairman and CEO of UAL Corporation, 28 October 2001. UAL entered bankruptcy on 9 December 2002.​

More than any other sphere of activity, aerospace is a test of strength between states, in which each participant deploys his technical and political forces.​

— French Government report, 1977​

It is obvious we are fighting for the Air France Group. . . . But in actual fact, we are also fighting for France.​

— Christian Blanc, Chairman Air France, 1996.​

The game we are playing her is closest to the old game of 'Christians and lions.'​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

The airline business is fast-paced, high risk, and highly leveraged. It puts a premium on things I like to do. I think I communicate well. And I am very good at detail. I love detail.​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO & President of American Airlines.​

I think it's dumb as hell, for Christ's sake all right, to sit here and pound the shoot out of each other and neither one of us making a Fricking dime.​

Well —
I mean, goddang! What the Frick is the point of it?
Nobody asked American to serve Harlingen. Nobody asked American to serve Kansas City. . . . If you're going to overlay every route of American's on top of every route that Braniff has, I can't just sit here and allow you to bury us without giving you our best effort.
Oh sure, but Eastern and Delta do the same thing in Atlanta and have for years.
Do you have a suggestion for me?
Yes, I have a suggestion for you. Raise your goddang fares twenty percent. I'll raise mine the next morning. You'll make more money and I will too.
Robert, we can't talk about pricing.
Oh, bullshoot, Howard. We can talk about any goddang thing we want to talk about.

— Robert L. Crandall and Howard Putnam, from United States v. American Airlines Inc. and Robert L. Crandall, U.S. District Court, CA383-0325D.​

Freddie Laker​

May be at peace with his Maker.
But he is persona non grata
With IATA.

— HRH Duke of Edinburgh​

People Express is clearly the archetypical deregulation success story and the most spectacular of my babies. It is the case that makes me the proudest.​

— Alfred Kahn, Professor of Political Economy, Cornell University, 'Time,' 13 Jan 1986.​

We have to make you think it's an important seat - because you're in it.​

— Donald Burr, founder of People Express.​

I decided there must be room for another airline when I spent two days trying to get through to People Express.​

— Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic.​

If Richard Branson had worn a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, a double-breasted suit and shaved off his beard, I would have taken him seriously. As it was I couldn't . . .​

— Lord King, Chairman British Airways.​

The trouble with predators is that they don't know who's the prey - until he's dead.​

— Sir Freddie Laker​

I really don't know one plane from the other. To me they are just marginal costs with wings.​

— Alfred Kahn, 1977.​

There always has been a mystique and a romance about aviation, but in terms of the principles involved of satisfying your customer there's no difference between selling airlines seats and chocolate bars.​

— Mike 'Mars Bars' Batt, British Airways' Head of Brands (Marketing) and Director of North American Routes.​

Air transport is just a glorified bus operation.

— Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, quoted in BusinessWeek Online, 12 September 2002.​

The thing I miss about Air Force One is they don't lose my luggage.

— President George Bush Sr.​

I have to say that flying on Air Force One sort of spoils you for coach on a regular airline.

— President Ronald Reagan​

​

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

In my own view, it was not merely uncomfortable, it was intolerable. It might perhaps have been endurable for a two-hour flight but an eight-hour flight is a totally different matter.

— Judge Gareth Edwards QC, regards JMC's 29-inch seat pitch. The judge upheld a compensation award made to Brian Horan after he suffered deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) on his journey Manchester, England, to the Canadian ski resort of Calgary. Chester County Court, 17 April 2002.​

You fucking academic eggheads! You don't know crap. You can't deregulate this industry. You're going to wreck it. You don't know a goddamn thing!​

— Robert L. Crandall, CEO American Airlines, addressing a Senate lawyer prior to airline deregulation, 1977.​

Deregulation will be the greatest thing to happen to the airlines since the jet engine.​

— Richard Ferris, CEO United Airlines, 1976.​

United has little to fear from numerous small competitors. We should be able to compete effectively by advertising our size, dependability, and experience, and by matching or beating their promotional tactics. . . . In a free environment, we would be able to flex our marketing muscles a bit and should not fear the treat of being nibbled to death by little operators.​

— Richard Ferris, CEO United Airlines, 1976.​

Total deregulation would allow anybody to fly any route, a situation that is unlikely ever to occur.​

— New York Times Magazine, May 9, 1976.​

No one expects Braniff to go broke. No major U.S. carrier ever has.​

— The Wall Street Journal, 30 July 1980.​

America, the land of the free, is turning itself into the land of the free ride. [U.S. airlines] are operating in protected markets. They are hoovering up public funds and they still can't make a profit.​

— Rod Eddington, CEO British Airways, regards competing against so many bankrupt U.S. airlines, 23 September 2005.​

If we went into the funeral business, people would stop dying.​

— Martin R. Shugrue, Vice-chairman Pan Am.​

If anybody ever flied to the Moon, the very next day Trippe will ask the Civil Aeronautics Board to authorize regular service.​

— James M. Landis​

Pan Am can go to hell.​

— Alfred E. Kahn, Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.​

This is one hell of a good deal for United Airlines.​

— Richard Ferris, Chairman United Airlines, after buying Pan Am's Far East route network.​

It's a great day for TWA.​

— William Compton, President Trans World Airlines Inc., on the day that U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson approved American Airlines' $200 million emergency financing plan, and cleared the way for the sale of America's longest-flying airline, 27 January, 2001.​

If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...​

— Mike Harding, 'The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac.'​

There is not much to say about most airplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you're grateful.​

— Paul Theroux, 'The Old Patagonian Express,' 1979.​

I don't mind flying. I always pass out before the plane leaves the ground.​

— Naomi Campbell, supermodel, 2000.​

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

— Jean Kerr, 'The Snake Has All the Lines,' 1958.​

Twenty-five per cent of the passengers of almost any aircraft show white knuckles on take-off.​

— Colin Marshall, CEO British Airways.​

Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.​

— Captain Eric Moody, British Airways, passenger PA after flying through volcanic ash in a B-747.​

The British Islands are small islands and our people numerically a little people. Their only claim to world importance depends upon their courage and enterprise, and a people who will not stand up to the necessity of air service planned on a world scale, and taking over thousands of aeroplanes and thousands of men from the onset of peace, has no business to pretend anything more than a second rate position in the world. We cannot be both Imperial and mean.​

— H. G. Wells, minority report of the committee to study "the development and regulation after the war of aviation for civil and commercial purposes from a domestic, an imperial and an international stand-point," 1917.​

It may be questioned whether civil aviation in England is to be regarded as one of those industries which is unable to stand on its own two feet, and is yet so essential to the national welfare that it must be kept alive at all costs.​

— Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes, first Director of British Civil Aviation, 1919.​

It was the first airplane . . . that could make money just by hauling passengers.​

— C. R. Smith, president of American Airlines, regarding the DC-3. The DC-3 specifications were shaped by AA.​

. . . It wasn't until the jet engine came into being and that engine was coupled with special airplane designs — such as the swept wing — that airplanes finally achieved a high enough work capability, efficiency and comfort level to allow air transportation to really take off.​

— Joseph F. Sutter, Boeing Commercial Airplanes.​

We're going to make the best impression on the traveling public, and we're going to make a pile of extra dough just from being first.​

— C. R. Smith, American Airlines, on the introduction of the Boeing 707, 'Forbes,' 1956.​

Its operation in a world beset by fuel and energy crises makes no sense at all.​

— Senator Cranston of California, regards the Concorde, 1974.​

You can be in London at 10 o'clock and in New York at 10 o'clock. I have never found another way of being in two places at once.

— Sir David Frost, Concorde regular.​

It is a magic aircraft . . . the pleasure of flying in it is almost a carnal one.

— Joelle Cornet-Templet, Air France's Chief Steward regards Concorde.​

An aircraft which is used by wealthy people on their expense accounts, whose fares are subsidized by much poorer taxpayers.​

— Denis Healey, British Labour Party, regards the Concorde.​

Without doubt, Concorde died yesterday at the age of 31. All that will remain is the myth of a beautiful white bird.

— 'Le Figaro' editorial, the day after AF 4590 crashed at takeoff from Charles de Gaulle aerodrome, 26 July 2000.​

For those of us who live in the shadow of this noisy monster, there aren't too many of us who are sorry to see it go.

— Anthony D. Weiner, Congressman for the 9th district of New York regards Concorde.​

The Boeing 747 is the commuter train of the global village.

— H. Tennekes, 'The Simple Science of Flight,' 1996.​

I don’t believe in being the launch customer for anything.​

— Carl Michel, British Airways’ commercial director, regards the Airbus A3XX (which was eventually named the A380), February 2000.​

We are pleased we haven't got one on order. It's too big an aircraft.

— Willie Walsh, CEO British Airways, regards the A380. Reported in AW&ST 21 November 2005.​

We have focused on derivatives for several years, but when it's time to do a new airplane, it's time to do a new airplane.​

— Michael B. Bair, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president for business strategy and development, announcing the 'Sonic Cruiser' (which was eventually canceled), 29 March, 2001.​

There has always been a certain romanticism associated with the airline business. We must avoid its perpetuation at Eastern at all costs.​

— Frank Borman​

I'm not paid to be a candy ass. I'm paid to go and get a job done. I could have ended up with another job, but the job I ended up with was piecing together a bunch of companies that were all headed for the junk heap . . . . I've got to be the bastard who sits around Eastern Airlines and says, 'hey, we're losing $3 million a day or whatever the number is and bang, bang, bang, bang, what do you do?' So, some jobs are easier than others.​

— Frank Lorenzo​

We are long-term players in the industry. We're not just crazy and emotional. We try to be logical business managers.​

— Frank Lorenzo​

I can't imagine a set of circumstances that would produce Chapter 11 for Eastern.​

— Frank Lorenzo​

As a businessman, Frank Lorenzo gives capitalism a bad name.​

— William F. Buckley​

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

From this day forward, you must assume that Eastern Airlines intends to force a strike, and you must be prepared for the worst.​

— Charlie Bryan, Eastern Machinists union leader .​

We were raped!​

— Frank Borman, after capitulating to Charlie Bryan's wage demands.​

You've got to treat people as equals, and make them feel like it's their company. I don't know if I've had any impact or helped persuade Frank [to sell Eastern]. But, I can tell you, there were many discussions on the subject.​

— Michael Milken​

Frank is capable of any kind of behavior to win.​

— Don Burr​

If you would look up bad labor relations in the dictionary, you would have an American Airlines logo beside it.​

— U.S. District Judge Joe Kendall, issuing a restraining order against an American Airlines APA pilot union sick out, 10 Feb 1999.​

The greatest sin of airline management of the last 22 years is to say, "It’s all labor’s fault."

— Donald Carty, Chairman and CEO American Airlines, 12 August 2002.​

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?

— Gordon Bethune, CEO Continental Airlines, quoted in 'Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up,' 2002.​

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

— Gordon Bethune, Chairman of Continental Airlines, regards U.S. government criticism that carriers schedule too many flights, quoted in 'Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up,' 2002.​

Regulation has gone astray. . . . Either because they have become captives of regulated industries or captains of outmoded administrative agencies, regulators all too often encourage or approve unreasonably high prices, inadequate service, and anticompetitive behavior. The cost of this regulation is always passed on to the consumer. And that cost is astronomical.​

— Senator Edward Kennedy, opening remarks to the Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, 6 February 1975.​

Whenever competition is feasible it is, for all its imperfections, superior to regulation as a means of serving the public interest.​

— Alfred Kahn, airline economist & Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.​

This entire industry is in a death spiral, including this company, and I can't get us out of it. Deregulation is an abysmal failure and we have no more furniture left to burn.

— Bruce Lakefield, CEO US Airways, while between bankruptcies and before being taken over by America West, October 2004.​

British Airways believes that it is intrinsically deceptive for two carriers to share a designator code.​

— British Airways, comment on PDSR-85, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Docket 42199, 1984.​

Code-sharing, alliances, and connections are all about "how do we screw the poor customer for more money?"

— Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, quoted in BusinessWeek Online, 12 September 2002.​

I've tried to make the men around me feel, as I do, that we embarked as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so new and unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with the statement that "it can't be done!". Our job is to keep everlasting at research and experimentation, to adapt our laboratories to production as soon as possible, and to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment pass us by.​

— William E. Boeing, founder The Boeing Company, 1929.​

A sick customer results in a sick airplane manufacturing industry, whatever the cause may be.​

— John E. Steiner, Boeing Commercial Airplanes.​

We built a jet airplane to get in and out of a 5,000-ft field. No one believed it could be done.​

— Joseph Sutter, Boeing Commercial Airplanes on the B-727.​

This is the most important aviation development since Lindbergh's flight. In one fell swoop, we have shrunken the earth.​

— Juan Trippe, founder of Pan Am on the introduction of jet aircraft.​

If the pilots were in charge, Columbus would still be in port. They believe the assertion that the world is flat.​

— Robert L. Crandall, 1993.​

The Wright Amendment is a pain in the ass, but not every pain in the ass is a constitutional infringement.​

— Herb Kelleher, CEO Southwest Airlines.
​

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Think and act big and grow smaller, or think and act small and grow bigger.​

— Herb Kelleher​

It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic.​

— Herb Kelleher​

You [the employees] are involved in a crusade.​

— Herb Kelleher​

That place runs on Herb Kelleher's bullshit.​

— Robert W. Baker, VP American Airlines, regards Southwest Airlines.​

I'm here to tell you that I am proud of a couple of things. First, I am very good at projectile vomiting. Second, I've never had a really serious venereal disease.

— Herb Kelleher, addressing the Wings Club in New York regards his time at Southwest, 2001.​

He's a nut job, but a focused nut job.

— Robert Land, JetBlue Airways government affairs director, regards boss David Neeleman, quoted in 'Fortune' magazine, 28 May, 2001. ​

Be Luke Skywalker, not Darth Vader. Ultimately love is stronger than evil.​

— Donald Burr, founder of People Express.​

Those were my children being slaughtered.​

— Donald Burr, on the death of People Express.​

We built the Model T; it was black and a lot of people bought it. But we found out not everybody wanted it.

— Randy Smith, marketing official, People Express Airlines, 'On no-frills flying,' New York Times 25 June 1986.​

The state of our airline industry is a national embarrassment.​

— Tom Plaskett, Chairman Pan Am, following the airline's collapse.​

All they have to do is look down at the traffic and suddenly they don’t feel like [flying is] that expensive a way to travel after all.

— Jim Herron, 'On $70 seaplane flights from Manhattan to Fire Island,' New York Times, 1 July 1986.​

Governments have supported airlines as if they were local football teams. But there are just too many of them. This is the only industry I know that has lost money consistently and makes money infrequently.​

— Richard Hannah, airline analyst with UBS in London, 'Fortune' magazine, February 1996.​

I think historically, the airline business has not been run as a real business. That is, a business designed to achieve a return on capital that is then passed on to shareholders. It has historically been run as an extremely elaborate version of a model railroad, that is, one in which you try to make enough money to buy more equipment.​

— Michael Levine, Executive VP Northwest Airlines, 1996.​

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

— Gordon Bethune, Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, 1996.​

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.​

— Gordon Bethune, Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, 1997.​

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.​

— Gordon Bethune, Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, regards buying Boeing or Airbus products, 2000.​

Americans love rising-from-the-ashes stories. They love the underdog coming back. We're going to take a tarnished brand name and bring it back to a high degree of luster.​

— Martin R. Shugrue Jr., President and CEO Pan American World Airways, 1996.​

In a sense, when we started Virgin Atlantic, I was trying to create an airline for myself. If you try to build the perfect airline for yourself, it will be appreciated by others.​

— Richard Branson, 1996.​

Sue the bastards.​

— Sir Freddie Laker's advice to Richard Branson regarding British Airway's dirty tricks campaign against Virgin Atlantic.​

Branson 'dirty tricks' claim unfounded.​

— Headline of an article in the British Airways newsletter 'BA News,' 1992. The article became the center of the largest libel payment in British legal history.​

I've said many times that I'd be thrilled to sell the airline to the employees and our guys said no, we'll take all the money, anyway.​

— Robert L. Crandall, 1997.​

The air is annoyingly potted with a multitude of minor vertical disturbances which sicken the passengers and keep us captives of our seat belts. We sweat in the cockpit, though much of the time we fly with the side windows open. The airplanes smell of hot oil and simmering aluminum, disinfectant, feces, leather, and puke ... the stewardesses, short-tempered and reeking of vomit, come forward as often as they can for what is a breath of comparatively fresh air.​

— Ernest K. Gann, describing airline flying in the 1930's.​

There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to meet people who do.​

— Henry Kissinger​

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.​

— Orson Welles, interview to celebrate his 70th birthday, 'The Times,' 6 May 1985.​

The world is divided into two kind of people: normal, intelligent, sensitive people with some breadth of imagination, and people who aren't the least bit afraid of flying.

— Layne Ridley, 'White Knuckles: Getting over the Fear of Flying,' 1987.​

Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means.... airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash.​

— Cecil Beaton, 'It Gives Me Great Pleasure', 1955.​

It was over in a blink of an eye, that moment when aviation stirred the modern imagination. Aviation was transformed from recklessness to routine in Lindbergh's lifetime. Today the riskiest part of air travel is the drive to the airport, and the airlines use a barrage of stimuli to protect passengers from ennui.​

— George Will, 'Charles Lindbergh, Craftsman,' 15 May 1977, 'The pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts,' 1978.​

Anything that is white is sweet.
Anything that is brown is meat.
Anything that is grey, don't eat.

— Stephen Sondheim, regards airline food, 'Do I hear a Waltz,' 1965.​

The more I fly, the more I'm convinced that the true wonder of modern aviation is the transformation of tasteless particles into something known as airplane food.

— Bob Blummer, 'The Surreal Gourmet.'.​

The quality of food is in inverse proportion to a dining room's altitude, especially atop bank and hotel buildings (airplanes are an extreme example).

— Bryan Miller, 'New York Times' restaurant critic.​

To me, an airplane is a great place to diet.

— Wolfgang Puck​

It's either expensive or it's crappy.

— JetBlue Airways spokesman regards airline food. Reported in The New York Times, 26 June 2002.​

A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery from the trip to the faraway places you've been, a decompression chamber between Here and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, reassess or reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice.

— Shana Alexander, 'The Feminine Eye,' 1970.​

Every time we hit an air pocket and the plane dropped about five hundred feet (leaving my stomach in my mouth) I vowed to give up sex, bacon, and air travel if I ever made it back to terra firma in one piece.

— Erica Jong, 'Fear of Flying,' 1973.​

Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo.

— Vice President Albert Gore.​

​

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

I wanted to soar through the air​

— Yuji Nishizawa, after hijacking All Nippon Airways flight 61 and stabbing the captain to death in order to try and fly the B-747 himself, July 1999.​

Fly the friendly skies.​

— United Airlines advertising slogan.​

Something special in the air.​

— American Airlines advertising slogan.​

To fly. To serve.​

— British Airways advertising slogan.​

The world's favourite airline.​

— British Airways advertising slogan.​

The Proud Bird with the Golden Tail​

— Advertising slogan of Continental Airlines, pre-1983 bankruptcy.​

We love to fly. And it it shows.​

— Delta Air Lines advertising slogan, replaced with 'You'll love the way we fly' in January 1995.​

Some people just know how to fly.​

— Northwest Airlines advertising slogan.​

How do we love you? Let us count the ways . . .​

— Early Southwest Airlines advertising slogan.​

The Wings of Man.​

— Eastern Airlines advertising slogan.​

Air Canada. That's a good name for a Canadian airline.​

— Johnny Carson, December 1974.​

I mean, they get paid an awful lot of money. The only good thing about them is they can't work after they're 60.

— Judge Prudence Carter Beatty, New York Southern District Bankruptcy Court, regards Delta Air Lines pilots. Reported in The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2005​

Life expands in an aeroplane. The traveler is a mere slave in a train, and, should he manage to escape from this particular yoke, the car and the ship present him with only limited horizons. Air travel, on the other hand, makes it possible for him to enjoy the 'solitary delights of infinite space.' The earth speeds below him, with nothing hidden, yet full of surprises. Introduce yourself to your pilot. He is always a man of the world as well as a flying ace.​

— Early French advertisement for airline service, quoted in 'The Airline Builders,' Oliver B. Allen.​

 

[ReverseSensing]

All I can say is "Wow!"

Is that your own collection?

 

[ShyFlyGuy]

Talk about hijacking a thread...