Airline’s President Shares ‘Worst to First’ Story With Students

Airline’s President Shares ‘Worst to First’ Story With Students

BY DANA HOYLAND
Rice News Staff
October 14, 1999

Taking the pilot’s seat of a company that is headed for its third bankruptcy in only 10 years is a tough decision for anyone to make, much less a young professional. But 33-year-old Greg Brenneman accepted the challenge, and it paid off.

Brenneman, president and chief operating officer of Continental Airlines, discussed his 1994 move to Continental and what’s been dubbed the “worst to first” story for the airline during a Dean’s Lecture Series presentation at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management Oct. 4.

Although Continental Airlines ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction among U.S. carriers and reported record profits in 1998, Brenneman told his audience that Continental wasn’t always on top. In fact, in 1994 Continental had “the world’s worst product,” Brenneman said. “I called it the 10th-place airline: It was 10th out of 10 in on-time performance, 10th out of 10 in baggage handling, 10th out of 10 in customer complaints, had 10 presidents in 10 years and went bankrupt twice in 10 years.”

One thing that was in Continental’s favor: hub locations. “We happened to have terrific hub locations,” Brenneman said. With hubs in Houston, Newark, N.J., and Cleveland, Brenneman and Gordan Bethune, chairman and CEO, set out to build a strong customer base from the company’s core hubs.

Brenneman and Bethune also needed to fix mistakes made by past leadership, so they, along with company officers, responded to countless complaint letters personally. Then, they went to the airline’s best customers,corporations and travel agents to try to rebuild their relationships. “We got on our knees and apologized for doing such a crappy job,” Brenneman said.

Brenneman also set out to take care of customers and–literally–clean up Continental’s image. First, he reinstated and improved the company’s frequent flyer program, which had been eliminated in order to save a penny per mile. He also replaced the food being served, which he and Bethune select and sample every three months, with things like fresh pasta in first class and Subway sandwiches and jelly beans in coach.

Next came the clean up. Continental’s planes were “beyond dirty,” he said. And, because of several mergers, planes–inside and out–were a rainbow of colors. Brenneman said they tripled the airplane cleaning schedules, painted every plane in the fleet the same color and replaced seats and carpeting so each would match.

Although Continental Airlines’ new image started taking flight, there was still the problem of employee morale. Brenneman knew employee morale was low, but he didn’t know how low until a visit to Houston. While walking the ramp to throw bags with baggage handlers, Brenneman noticed that almost every employee had ripped the Continental logo off their shirt. When Brenneman asked why, one mechanic replied, “When I go to Wal-Mart tonight, I don’t want anyone to know that I work for Continental.”

“That response sent chills down my spine,” Brenneman told the audience.

In an effort to build employee morale, Brenneman, who calls the 48,000 employees at Continental his “co-workers,” implemented incentives for employees and listened to their suggestions. One such incentive came after flight scheduling problems were fixed. If Continental Airlines comes in first place in on-time arrivals in a certain month, each employee receives a check for $100.

Brenneman said Continental Airlines employees always have wanted to do what’s right for their customers. “When the customer wins, our employees win,” he said.