zerozero, Southwest was founded by two men, a flamboyant lawyer, Herb Kelleher, and an introverted pilot by the name of Roland King. Kelleher was a lawyer from New Jersey who knew nothing about aviation or airlines. The brainchild of Southwest was King. He put together the airline and Kelleher fought the legal battles. The original formulas that King put in place are still the foundation of the airline.
I think Gordon Bethune has done a good. He’s a pilot. Continental has come a long way under his stewardship.
PaulDeGearup, (I like your moniker) I believe you are right about the frustration. PPRuNe is often an outlet, a place where we can vent a little steam in the company of our peers. I can remember a time when managers respected a Captain’s opinion. Now we are nothing more than a commodity to them. Like Cokes or fuel. All they are interested in is getting us for the lowest possible cost. I have given up trying to talk to management. They never listen. I guess they all have to learn the hard way. Watching their learning curve can be very frustrating. Whenever we get a new manager he invariably decides that we are going to save a lot of money by only carrying minimum fuel. Then the inevitable happens. After a good scare they try the opposite, tankering fuel, and in their zeal they go overboard with that too. We get delays while fuel has to be offloaded. Once it’s offloaded it can’t be used again. And there are the inevitable holding patterns on rough winter nights to burn off enough fuel so we can land on icy runways. Eventually we come full circle and we’re back to where we started. I got tired of the fuel merry-go-round a long time ago. I load the fuel I want or I don’t take the jet. In the evenings I’m relaxed and over diner I listen to noticeably frustrated pilots recount their days adventures on the management fuel merry-go-round.