Dick Ginkowski

Things I would do as CEO:

1. Listen to my employees.
2. Take care of my employees.
3. Listen to my customers.
4. Take care of my customers.
5. Simplify the process to make flying fun again and reduce costs.
6. Become personally involved.
7. Lead by example.

The job of management is to get work done by others. As Yogi Berra said, great managers are made by great players.

As CEO, I would spend some time at the airports, talking to employees and customers. I would find out their concerns and work to address them.

I would set up quality and communication "circles" where employees would be able to discuss company issues and propose solutions.

I would also set up consumer panels where, in particular, frequent flyers would be able to make suggestions and provide input. Further, I would institute a mediation and arbitration process where aggrieved consumers could seek a fair resolution of disputes. Much of this would be at the front line level where employees and supervisors would be empowered to resolve minor disputes much more than they are now. (While some customers are very unreasonable and/or unrealistic, most just want to be made whole. After Delta damaged a bag of mine and gave me a gazillion bogus reasons why they would not take care of it, I took it to a shoe repair shop where it cost me all of $1 to fix. It probably cost Delta more to argue!) It's a lot cheaper to take care of problems at the front line.

I would simplify the fare structure. It makes no sense to have fares on the books that make no logical sense. Most people just want to get where they want to be safely, on time and with reasonable comfort. I would shy away from loss leader fares and instead put in place a system where fares are inexpensive but not ridiculously so. A full plane of people paying $225 or so makes more sense that a schizophrenic fare system.

If there are upgrades, I would seek to make them available first to the best customers as a reward for their loyalty. I would, however, reserve a seat or two on each flight for a "mystery" upgrade similar to what many sports teams use.

I would encourage employees to, within reason, have fun on the job, bearing in mind the safety, efficiency AND hospitality are our primary goals.

I would destroy most of the form letters the so-called customer relations people use and instead have them respond with "real people" language. It's prefectly okay to say "we screwed up" instead of making excuses or engaging in double speak.

I would also fly my own airline and let people know when I am on board and who I am. Most of the time I would be in the cheap seats but occasionally not because I would want to hear what the platinum level folks think, too.

The biggest thing I would do, though, is throw out what isn't working about the present model and then ask my employees and customers what kind of model would work and then try to build it.