Customer Reviews

From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a great book and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Bethune's engaging and simple writing style made it easy to read and understand. Outlining his four-fold plan for turning around Continental airlines, Bethune offers advice to all business professionals. He uses numerous examples from his previous affiliations with the airline industry, as well as stories and anecdotes, to make his simple, yet profound points. At the end of the book, I felt like I could run an airline, too! As a frequent flyer who flew on Continental for many years, I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes account of what was really happening. At times, I did find myself thinking he might have painted the past so bleak as to make his leadership look even better, but I'll allow him that. Bethune understands that the customer is not always right, but the customer is everything to a business. I would highly recommend this business strategy book to anyone looking to change an unhealthy organization into one more healthy and profitable.

This book is absolutely invaluable for any manager or leader in an organization, regardless of size. The techniques are fundamental and scale to any size, whenever appropriate.

I've already recommended this book to many friends and associates and I continue to purchase countless copies as gifts or (effectively) as an "investment" in companies that I'm involved with.

As someone with a pre-Gordon "Member Since" date on my Continental Elite card, Bethune's description of Continental in the 80s and 90s brings back some all-too-familiar bad memories of what it was like to travel on the world's worst airline when failure was imminent. Although he accurately depicts the bad times with great detail, those people that experienced the disaster will probably best appreciate and understand Gordon's incredible undertaking and the drastic changes that were the result.

Additionally, it's noteworthy (and consistent with Gordon's nature) that all proceeds from this book will be donated to a non-profit organization that assists Continental Airlines' employees and their families in times of need. Best of all, you get inquisitive looks and smiles from flight attendants when reading this book on a Continental flight.

It's a shame that every company can't be as lucky as Continental to have a Chief Executive like Gordon Bethune.

With literary assistance from journalist Scott Huler, Continental Airlines CEO Gordon Bethune describes how he transformed the near-bankrupt airline into one of the best companies in the industry. He describes the massive changes he made to improve the product, changing a low-cost, unreliable airline to a top competitor that emphasizes customer service. The transformations he brought about by exerting strong leadership reshaped financial controls and employee-supplier-creditor relationships. The book is a fascinating read, written in a straightforward, this-is-how-it-was style, typified by Bethune's characterization of the company he took over as a... "lousy" airline with terrible service. Sometimes he gets a little repetitious in summarizing the action at each new step in the transformation, but that's just a minor complaint about an otherwise excellent book.....

This is an excellent book, its full of examples, easy to understand, easy to read, great for everyone who is interested in the basics of management, not only of an airline, but any company.

I am new to the airline industry, and this book has let me understand a lot about it. Really easy to read, it is written in an easy language.

Contiental was the worst airline to fly, the worst airline to work for, and in 1994-1995 when Mr. Bethune rode the cockpit of it, in a year he made it to have its first profit in 10 years. How did he do it? Read this book.

This book was written previous to the September 11th 2001, so it has nothing about the recent economic crisis affecting all airlines worldwide, but it explains the plan (the Go Forward Plan) that has kept CO working these last years and how CO is, among major US carriers, one of the ones with less looses and debt in the industry.

Definitely a must read!

I really like this book. It is very informative and deals with the state of Continental at the time of the turn around. As an employee at the time, we were not told much about what was happening. Gordon and Greg used common sense to make Continental what it is today. I have met and talked to Gordon, and he talks to employees the same way that he wrote the book. While it doesn't give detaliled specifics on what he did and how he did it, this book gives a general overview of what was done to make the employees happy, and in turn make the airline the success that it has become. To those who say the book is repetitive, get over it. There isn't much to say except Continental was bad, and now people are competing to fill open positions. Also Gordon has directed the publisher to direct any royalties that he was going to make to WE CARE, an internal employee emergency assistance fund.

I had the pleasure of doing media relations for Continental in the early 2000s, including the years after 9/11. The Gordon Bethune in the book is the Gordon Bethune you meet in person: incredibly smart, driven, concerned about the people whose paychecks he signed, and satisfied with nothing less than the best. Great read. (I sound like a PR guy... But I mean it sincerely...)

In From Worst to First Continental CEO Gordon Bethune discusses how he and his team turned around Continental Airlines (then on the verge of bankruptcy) and produced the profitable, customer-friendly airline that Continental is today.

The book is a good read, filled with numerous examples. Bethune takes the reader through the process that occurred at Continental and comments extensively on how the techniques that he applied could be applied to other businesses. However, Bethune neglects, in many cases to explain the thought process behind the decision that he made. In some cases this is expected: most readers will obviously know that a business needs capital to operate. In others, such as some of his less generally-accepted employee relations techniques, he explains only what he did not why he did it. Because of this, the book is more of a "how to" than a case study on Continental.

Also of note, this book primarily deals with a turn-around situation, and while some of the techniques presented are clearly applicable in any business, others deal specifically with a business that is well established and experiencing difficulty. Other techniques deal primarily with large organizations, and may be of only minimal use to an executive at a smaller company.

Over all From Worst to First is a good read, and the information and techniques provided will well justify the time spent reading it!

An excellant book! Gordan's ideas are strongly emphasized in each chapter as he deals with the strategies of creating a winning team. His stories and metephors for dealing with issues that face all types of business are a slap of reality. They clearly explain his motivation and decision making. Coming from a technical background, Gordan explains this very plain and simple. I am in the IT world now, and see many strong points that could be applied from this book.

great book, if you're in the airline biz it's simply a must read, best book written in this industry.

A suberb chronicle of the quest to bring Continental Airlines out of the ashes and mold it into the best airline in the World. Having flown Continental on numerous occasions it is interesting to read about the behind the scenes actions and history of this proud and excellent airline. Great reading about a great airline!