Top 39 Quotes & Sayings by Gordon Bethune

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman Gordon Bethune.

Last updated on December 3, 2024.

Gordon M. Bethune is a retired US airline executive. He was the CEO of Continental Airlines from 1994 until his retirement at the end of 2004. He formerly served on the boards of Honeywell and Prudential Financial. Bethune was known for ensuring that he received some time as a pilot when taking delivery of a new Continental Airlines Boeing 767 from Boeing and repositioning it from Seattle to Houston.

American - Businessman | Born: August 29, 1941

Source: Wikipedia

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

Gordon Bethune

You're only as good as your dumbest competitor.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

The substitute for knowledge is money.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

The first step to problem solving is figuring out who's got the problem.

Gordon Bethune

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

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?

Gordon Bethune

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

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

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.

Gordon Bethune

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

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

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

We're a stupid industry led by stupid people.

Gordon Bethune

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

Gordon Bethune