A few weeks ago I sat in Phoenix, waiting for my Frontier flight home, and another passenger started a conversation about airlines, "I used to fly a different airline all the time - I travel for work a lot - but now I just fly Frontier. Their attitude is so much better. Everyone -from the flight attendants to the counter staff- they always seem to be happy and willing to help. Not like the other guys."

I've heard this story many times over the past few years. And it's true. I was flying Frontier the day they switched over to a new computer system. As predicted in an e-mail sent by Frontier several days earlier, lines were long and patience was short. I saw Frontier executives passing out doughnuts to staff and passengers alike. The "frizzle" quotient among Frontier staff was low, and people were helping each other left and right. It was almost like I had walked into a mass-team building exercise where they were being graded on cooperation, helpfulness, and patience. Maybe I had.

BLUE: I was so impressed with your staff. They were doing everything they could to make the day easier for the passengers. I think people were a little frustrated, but they were very understanding and it had everything to do with how your staff dealt with that transition. So my question is, how do you create a culture of positive attitudes and helpful client service?

Potter: Well, it’s a good question. I think when you go back to the start of this company, the original President was a guy named Hank Lund, and then of course Sam Addoms, and then myself. I think it was something that began very early and I know Hank and Sam would agree when I say that the type of culture we have here is surprisingly open. It can’t be started at the top. You can certainly set a foundation. I think the old cliché - management by walking around and walking in other folks’ shoes at an executive level - goes so far that the employees understand that you understand what they’re going through.

On the day that you were traveling, this building (headquarters) darn near emptied. It wasn’t only executives, it was a vast majority of the employees here. A good part of the employees knew that there was a need and they’d pick up and go. Sometimes we solicit volunteers over holiday periods, that type of thing, but most of the time you don’t even have to do that. People just do it. You hear terms tossed around like “empowerment” and, while that’s important, ownership is probably a better characterization. I don’t mean financial ownership. I mean giving folks the knowledge and the background that they own a particular situation and they use their best judgment. What’s so impressive about this organization, from my standpoint, is that it’s almost an iterative process. It drives upon itself over the years and it just continues to grow to where now it’s almost expected. We would never go out and say we expect you to be at the airport, but I think it’s something we expect of each other.

BLUE: What do you do as a CEO that perpetuates a culture of client service?

Potter: Well, in my case, and in the case of someone like a Sean Menke, our COO, people know that we started in the “stations”, and we’ve been in front of the customer. I was a ticket agent. Sean worked on the ramp for another airline. It says something that you’re not sitting behind four walls in an office building away from the action; you’ve been there, and you don’t shy away from going over and helping when the need arises.

BLUE: How do you think the culture at Frontier is different from other airlines?

Potter: I think that the employees here have a sense of pride, and once again, a sense of ownership. They believe in what we are doing. They enjoy what they’re doing. I think a lot of it has to do with being very open communicators, and that leads you very quickly to a position of mutual trust.

BLUE: Is there a story that is emblematic of Frontier’s culture or values?

Potter: The blizzard of ’03. Financially, it was very painful, but probably one of the moments that I was most proud of the organization. We knew a snowstorm was coming in; we all packed up. I had sleeping bags in the car and my wife put together care kits and movies. We rented hotel rooms for the employees because we knew it would probably be a couple of days. We didn’t realize it would be three to four days. We did a great job of preplanning. We had operational calls anywhere from four to six times a day and those calls were led by the Director of Stations. I could sit back and listen in on how every single person within the organization had prepared their specific departments. I think the part that was so impressive was that we would hear, “well, we’re short people down at the ticket counter, we can’t even get people here,” then you’d hear someone pipe in, “Well, okay we’ve got some people out here on Concourse A, we’ll send them to the ticket counter,” that type of thing. It was very well executed. I think our customers understood that we were going out of our way trying to get them to their destination, and it was really, really impressive. Other airlines serving the airport were, as it turns out, somewhat ill-prepared for the situation. Our employees even ended up digging out one of United’s airplanes.

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