Skift Take
If Fred Reid, the founding CEO of Virgin America, is to be believed, then a radically new passenger experience would have more to do with employee attitudes and technology than seat pitch and armrests. Such a cultural revolution at legacy airlines is one big nut to crack.
Fred Reid knows a thing or two about the airline business and passenger experience, and believes that "Virgin America has proven that technology + style + design + ease of use + people, people, people, people can launch an airline."
As the founding CEO of Virgin America, a post he left in late 2007, Reid says he banned the use of words such as "passenger" and "employee" in favor of "guest" and "teammate," and you'll see from the Skift interview below that he did so for substantive reasons that go to the core success or failure of an airline, and not just for public relations spin.
A business strategist who currently sits on the boards of Thayer Ventures and travel startup GetGoing, Reid has served as CEO of Virgin America, president of Delta Air Lines and Lufthansa, and also did stints at American Airlines and Pan Am.
Reid will speak at the Skift Global Forum: Defining the Future of Travel October 9 in New York City on "creating a radically guest-centric airline."
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Skift caught up Reid and spoke with him about his experience pitching Virgin America to investors, why he advised flight attendants from a rival airline to keep doing what they were doing, and the future of the airline passenger experience, among other topics.
Skift: You read all the time these days that airlines have to focus on cost-containment and rising fuel costs. How can they possibly make the passenger experience a more important element of their strategies?
Fred Reid: Right now airlines are in an absolutely unbelievable golden era, especially the U.S. carriers. It started a year or two ago and should run another year or two unless something really crazy happens. The long-term balance sheet health of the airlines has always been problematic, and I would say that cost-containment and cost pressures are not necessarily the other side of the coin of passenger experience. Unless you are flying planes where the seats are torn up or you haven't cleaned the planes in 40 days.
By the way, at Virgin America "passenger" is a prohibited word. It is never used. It is "guest." At Virgin America the words "employee" and "labor" never appear anywhere. It is "teammate
