Gordon Bethune and Continental Airlines

Gordon Bethune and Continental Airlines

The story of Gordon Bethune and Continental Airlines reads more like a fairy tale than a story

about a talented CEO and the company that he was charged to save. The remarkable turnaround of Continental speaks volumes about the managerial style and abilities that Gordon Bethune possesses. Morale was at an all time low at Continental when Bethune arrived and it was this that Bethune identified as his major problem within the company and set out to make changes and that would successfully remake attitudes and ultimately performance. The disarray that Continental faced in no small part to its previous regime demonstrated and was easily such a monumental task that if Bethune failed as CEO no one would have batted an eye, it was to many an untenable situation and a situation that would worsen until Continental no longer existed. Gordon Bethune demonstrated unwavering leadership and focused his attention on the customer service aspect of the airline and with that focus ultimately proved to be a financial success as well. The morale at Continental was in such disrepair when Bethune arrived that he made that a focal point of his restructuring and developed his management to focus on building morale within Continental which would in turn help fix the customer service issues plaguing the airline. Under Bethune's leadership Continental helped to right the wrongs of its previous regime and that is no small part to Gordon Bethune and his personal attachment to the airline industry and his personal commitment to every one of the employees at Continental. The forward thinking and rational approach taken by Bethune permeated every facet of the company and made even complex issues seem pedestrian and easier to solve than once thought.

The situation that Gordon Bethune encountered when he arrived at Continental was disastrous to say the least, satisfaction was at an all time low and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy for the third time. The leading issue regarding Continental in the period that Bethune assumed his post as CEO was in quite simply awful customer service and employee morale being a close second. "From the perspective of Greg Brenneman, the Bain & Company merger and acquisition specialist Continental hired in May 1993, to study and stabilize the company, customers shared the same sentiment that employees expressed about Continental: "The product, in a word, was terrible."(pg. 1 Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines) The attitude and morale of the employees was filtering out to the customers and everyone was affected by the infighting and terrible work environment that was occurring at Continental. These were the major issues that Bethune encountered when he took over at Continental but they were not the only ones, the financial ruins that the company was in could all be looked at from different angles and dissected in different ways. What Bethune saw was an underperforoming airline that had lost its core constituency and was maintaining worthless routes and alienating the customers that the company should have been retaining. The largest problem besides customer service that was affecting Continental when Bethune took over was that problems were not being fixed, they were being pushed aside and never looked at. "The way we saw it, though Continental had extreme cash woes, that wasn't the real problem," Bethune said. "The problem was that every solution to every problem for lost in a maelstrom of anger, backbiting and plain old dispirited disgust."(pg. 10 Gordon Bethune at Continental Airlines) The entrenched business philosophy was the one thing that was going to have to change if Continental was going to make a comeback.

Bethune took decisive and bold steps to re-energize Continental and help change the perception not only with the public at large but with his own employees. The first and most important step that Bethune instituted was the Go Forward plan, this plan included the Fly to Win (a product-service plan), Fund the Future (a financial plan), Make Reliability a Reality (the product plan) and Working Together (the people plan). These plans all under the umbrella of the Go Forward initiative was to serve as the foundation of the resurrection and future of Continental Airlines under the stewardship of Gordon Bethune. The Fly to Win initiative was put into place to focus on the strengths of Continental and not dwell on past failures, the biggest financial decision was to close hubs that didn't offer financial success and instead focus on hubs that would turn the customer base into the more profitable business traveler as opposed to bargain hunters that stood a good chance of not being repeat customers. The dissolution of the CAL Lite brand took the focus off of bargain hunter flights and instead focused on the business traveler and what they were willing to pay for and