Fred Reid looks as if he could have played John Glenn in The Right Stuff. But the CEO of Virgin America--the new low-cost airline partly backed (but fully branded) by British entrepreneur Richard Branson--is a character all his own. As the president of Delta (NYSE:DAL), he launched the ill-fated, low-cost Song. (What did he learn from the experience? "Damn little," he says.) As the president and COO of Lufthansa (OTC:DLAKY), he was the first American to lead a major non-U.S. carrier. We caught up with the razor-tongued Reid, 57, in New York, one of the five cities his airline currently serves.
Virgin America had a tough time getting regulatory approval to start flying. What was the problem?
There was a barrage of complaints--almost all of them spurious, mostly from the legacy carriers--threatening to derail us, because people did not want me running another airline. Partly, it was, "Uh-oh, Fred again," and partly it was, "Oh geez, a Virgin-branded company," and thirdly, it was, "Oh, good--another high-end, low-cost airline like JetBlue to make our lives miserable." Put those three things together, and they really pulled out all the stops.
But that battle helped bring you some recognition.
Sure. Last December, we launched a Web site called LetVAfly.com, and it produced hundreds of thousands of Web hits.
To recap, the introduction explains that he failed the last time he ran an airline. The first question establishes that he ran in to a lot of unspecified problems in starting his new airline. His answer is that (most of) the complaints were baseless and were motivated because competitors were afraid of him. This answer is absurd. If he failed the last time, his competitors should be thrilled to see him running another airline. Yet the interviewer makes no attempt to challenge the answer. I assume the article is targeted at relatively savvy business people. So I don't understand the fluff.
I had a similar reaction reading the glowing article about Phil (Nike) Knight's film company.
