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American Morning
America's New War: CEO of Continental Discusses Industry's Future
Aired September 28, 2001 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The airline industry has taken a big hit from these terrorist attacks; that has led to some big layoffs.
Gordon Bethune is the chief executive officer at Continental Airlines. He was the first airline executive to call for government aid.
And CNN's Willow Bay spoke with him at length about what it would take to get people back in airplanes. She began by asking if he expects additional layoffs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GORDON BETHUNE, CEO CONTINENTAL AIRLINES: I hope not. If we have restoration and the public confidence in our transportation, I know our government is working hard to do that, I know that all of us in the industry are. I think people will come back. I don't know the psychology, this is the first time it's ever happened to anyone, but sooner or later, you know, you just got to go to Seattle and it's a long, long drive from Houston. So I think people will get back on the planes, as they should.
WILLOW BAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you're not expecting further layoffs, will you be asking your employees, as some of the other airlines have done, to take salary cuts?
BETHUNE: I don't think that's the way to run it. I told my executives, I said I would rather have 50 of you at 100 percent of your pay than 100 of you at 50 percent of you're pay. People tend to attract the best talent, and if you cut people's pay they will just go work for IBM and somewhere elsewhere where they can get what they're worth. We need to pay people fairly. If we don't have enough money to pay all of our people, let's pay those that do work fairly. If we don't have enough money to pay all of our people, let's pay those that do work fairly.
BAY: What do you need to do, what does your airline need to do, what does this industry need to do to get passengers back on the planes?
BETHUNE: I believe that we need to give them the confidence that someone has changed the security so much so that they can kind of not worry about this happening again. We need an outward manifestation of strength on the airline. We're talking about strengthening the doors, putting air marshals on the airplanes, actually, a uniform presence. I've put humvees and machine guns out in front of the airport. Not that it's going to do anything, but people -- even when you go like out in Rome or Frankfurt you see these guys walking around with Uzis, and you just kind of feel better. And some of that is going to help.
BAY: I'd like to get your take on several proposals that, as you know, are under consideration. First of all, you are trained as a commercial pilot. Do you think pilots should be armed?
BETHUNE: I think I like the pilots to kind of stick to flying the airplane. There's a number of things they can do, and I will tell you that, you know, what they don't -- what they need is the safety to do their job, to have a barricade that's it's impermeable so that the terrorist can't get to the airport and use it as a bomb. So now we've defeated their whole purpose hopefully in taking the airplane, which means they won't take it.
The pilots need to be alerted, they need to be protected from those kind of attacks. But they can do some pretty (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- keep everybody on the ceiling of that airplane if they want to descend at that rate. We can like do some aileron turns that will put you on the floor. And so I would like an air marshal that's properly trained in the procedures in the back and the pilots to be adequately protected to safely land the airplane.
BAY: Do you think the government should take over the role of airport-airline security?
BETHUNE: Well, because its not airport-airline security any longer. Those people in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not airplane passengers or employees. So since they have now, the terrorists, taken for the first time ever an airplane, and not to make some political statement and destroy it, but they've taken it and used it as a guided bomb, a 450 thousand pound bomb. That's a public safety issue, and so the government is responsible for the public's safety and they need to ensure that it's uniformly done across the country. There ought to be national transportation security force.
BAY: Will there be?
BETHUNE: Well, I hope so. I'm advocating that. I know a number of my colleagues are because they said there's no other way to do this. Now, whether that's an efficient way or not an efficient I think it's the way that we assure the public's security.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Mr. Bethune expects passenger demand to rebound a bit in a few months, once fear subsides, but does not expect to be back at normal until next summer. And like several other airline executives, Bethune is forgoing his salary for the rest of the year.
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