Airline Quotes....

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The rest are at:

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/airline.html

"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 goddamn 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 ********************ing 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.​

The airline business is crazy. I've not been enamored with the industry in general. You can't depend on anybody and anything. It's dog-eat-dog and one thing or another from one minute to the next. What I understand about it, I don't like what I see.

— Robert Brooks, Hooters Air owner, 'The Sun News,' 21 March 2006.​

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 ******************** out of each other and neither one of us making a ********************ing dime.
Well —
I mean, goddamn! What the ******************** 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 goddamn 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, bull********************, Howard. We can talk about any goddamn 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.​

In the '80's my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I'd like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.

— Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic. Interview in 'Men's Journal,' May 2006.​

 

[9rj9]

2005

In its press release announcing the new partnership, Delta described its decision to retain Ogilvy as "part of a comprehensive 360-degree plan set in motion earlier this year to reinvent itself while sustaining growth." Um, Delta? It's kind of worrisome to have to explain this to a company that flies airplanes for a living, but when you turn yourself around 360 degrees, you wind up pointing in exactly the same direction as before.

David Reyes- USA Today

 

[Tail Gunner Joe]

"Right Rudder!!" --"Dick" Schwabe