One-on-One wIth Jeff Potter, CEO of Frontier Airlines
(continued)
BLUE: Does Frontier do anything in its training or in its
institutional life to help instill your culture?
Potter: You create a foundation; you
create a sense of openness. From my perspective if you’re
accessible, as most people in the organization are, you know
that if an aircraft cleaner
has got a suggestion and they want to come see me, they can
come see me. It happens a lot.
In orientation, it is instilled just by talking about it.
I talk to most of them. Also, our bar of expectations for
ourselves is much, much higher than I think anybody would
expect of us, so we’re our own worst critic.
Joe Hodas, Frontier Communications Director: We knew that
at the pace that we were growing, at some point the message
gets diluted. The things that you try to maintain within
a culture somehow get disrupted because you are growing
so quickly and people just don’t recognize or fully embrace
it. So, we put together mission, values and promise statements.
It would probably surprise you because you would think a
company with a culture as strong as ours would have had
that already. The culture was really word of mouth; people
just embraced that culture without actually putting it in
writing. At that point in time, however, after the growth
we had seen, we felt that it was important to give people
a vocabulary to talk to one another about the culture so
that we could inculcate the next group of employees as they
join Frontier.
BLUE: Let’s move on to singing penguins and sarcastic
rabbits. You guys have been very, very creative in your marketing
and also in your operations. Frontier’s promotions,
in-flight television, and your own television network have
set you apart. What’s the role of creativity and innovation
at Frontier and how does it go beyond marketing?
Potter: Well, I think the rule is,
you always have to have an open mind. Once again I’ll use
a cliché:
there’s no such thing as a bad idea. You have to keep
an open mind. We have to believe that you as a traveler are
interested in a value proposition as opposed to the lowest
price. As long as we commit ourselves to that, we’ll
continue to be pretty creative in trying to differentiate
ourselves. I read something this morning about how challenging
it is for airlines because it is a commodity. You fly from
point A to point B; you have very low expectations, and that’s
what you’re looking for. I don’t believe that.
I think you can get from point A to point B, be welcomed
with a smile, nice service, good product and still with very
good value.
It’s broader than just marketing. It is an extension
of being an owner vs. being empowered. It’s allowing
people, as leaders, to think on their own and push down some
of that responsibility.
BLUE: What do you and your management team do to
encourage creativity and innovation?
Potter: There are often times where
individually you might have a group of people that aren’t
the most creative, including myself, but collectively can be
very powerful,
very creative, and very innovative. A process that not only
empowers the individual but also encourages teamwork goes
a long way to building the culture we have here.
BLUE: Do you have any innovations coming up
that we can look forward to?
Potter: We have a big one coming up with
our frequent flyer program. We can’t fill you in on the details, but it
will be innovative and different.
BLUE: We’ll look forward to that. Like Holland & Hart,
your footprint is based in the Rocky Mountain Region. Give
me an idea of your opinion on the economic health of the
region, how it’s changing, and how that affects Frontier?
Potter: Well, my view of the economic
environment in Denver and Colorado
is that it’s been fairly sluggish over
the last couple of years, a little bit more so than the national
average. For this organization, that just means an opportunity.
I do think things are picking up, and we’ve had just
some absolutely stellar months over the last three or four
months in terms of our load factor. The percentage of seats
we fill has grown substantially year after year, and it’s
important for us because typically two-thirds of the passengers
we carry are going to or from Denver. In many ways, it’s
directly related to the economic climate. During March and
the summer months there’s a lot of leisure travel.
Based on what we’ve seen over the last several months
and what we see in terms of bookings, it looks like fairly
good news. I think the airline industry, by the way, is a
pretty good economic indicator.
BLUE: Why is it important for Frontier
to be based in Denver?
Potter: It checks all the boxes for
us. It’s a nice
place to live and work for the employees that work at Frontier.
A big part of being happy at what you do is where you do
it, and so we’re thrilled with that part of it. It
was a time and place that made a lot of sense for Frontier
to earmark Denver as its place of operations and, as it turned
out, it was a pretty sound decision. When you look at the
(airline) traffic and you know that two-thirds of our traffic
is coming to or from Denver, that’s a critical component
to our business. When we’re out selling the company,
one of the things we don’t have to sell is Denver or
the State of Colorado. It sells itself.
BLUE: That’s
great and that’s evident. You and your marketing folks
have done a great job of being a big community player in
Denver. You’re ubiquitous. Everywhere you go there’s
a Frontier sponsorship and I think that’s been really
good marketing.
Potter: Having your headquarters
in a city and a state is one thing, but to be a part
of that community is something that we really focused
on over the last few years. I
won’t say we ever did a bad job of it, but we all knew that we could
probably get a little bit better at it and so it’s
been a terrific part of the evolution of the company. It’s
fun to be involved. It’s not only the right thing to
do, but it gets employees jazzed up and gets them involved
in things they’re interested in and they know is important
to the community. It’s one thing to get beyond the
financial commitments, but when you can get a group of employees
out and help rebuild an adult facility and feed a Thanksgiving
dinner and you have to turn employees away because you have
so many volunteers, that says a lot about the organization.
BLUE: Yes, it does. We have a
Foundation at Holland & Hart that primarily gives time. We
focus on community service projects.
Potter: Most charities that I
know of prefer that. They all need a financial commitment
somewhere, but when they see folks getting involved, seeing
companies getting involved with time, it’s priceless.
BLUE: Could you tell me a little
bit about your leadership style and what do you look for when
you’re hiring leaders at Frontier?
Potter: I try to find people
that know their area of responsibility
and it’s facilitating the team. We’ve got a terrific
staff from top to bottom here and given the flexibility,
they come up with this innovation, this creativity that we
talk about and what our customers see. There are points in
time where it can’t be a democracy and a decision has
to be made. But most times everybody is on the same page.
You can’t run an organization by consensus but I think
you can build consensus, and I think to do that you have
to be fairly open. I think it’s
fair to say that I have a big
ego. I just want, as a team, everybody to get
this thing to work.
BLUE: Great. Finally, lawyers.
Potter: Yeah we have a couple
here. We know about you guys.
BLUE: Not to get into any details,
but what do you expect from lawyers and how has that changed
over time?
Potter: It’s only part of
running an organization. Running a business has become so
focused, so detailed that
with Holland & Hart we need your expertise. The reason
Holland & Hart has been successful in this relationship
is you have the expertise and have taken the time to understand
our business. It is important to understand our business.
I would tell you it’s just critical. You have to understand
the airline business, you have to understand a lot about
this organization and about Frontier in general.
When you have that under your belt, it demonstrates several
things: It demonstrates a true interest on your part, and
I think it allows our organization, working with Holland & Hart,
to come up with some better solutions than we would otherwise.
This is something that is asked of all our partners. You
can say a “whole different animal” goes
beyond just the tagline. We try to be different, we are different
and we want people to work with us to understand that and
understand why that is.
BLUE: What’s the best way
for somebody to understand more about Frontier?
Potter: Spend a day here. The
comments I always hear are, “I
can’t believe how casual (in a positive way) and open
this organization is!” The animals on the airplane
tail characterize Frontier. They are more than just animals.
They represent individuals and how each of us are different
individuals. I think when you look at our in-flight organization,
we don’t go in and ask them to be funny, we don’t
ask them to do anything. We ask them to be themselves. When you
fly on Frontier you have some people who are comedians;
you have some that sing. It is part of their own personality
and the individual personalities that make up this company.
BLUE: You mentioned Frontier’s values earlier. What
are Frontier’s mission and values?
Potter: Our mission is: We’re
in business to be the best loved airline and we will earn it one
action at a time, no matter how big or how small, to create a different and better
experience.
Our values:
1. We’ll only become
the best loved airline through safety and value.
2. People are priceless;
3. Respect the co-worker as
a neighbor, a customer as a guest;
4. Trust; we’re only as
good as our word;
5. Collaboration; we’re
in this together;
6. Value; we don’t charge
for the extra mile;
7. Passion; this smile is real.
That’s the mission and values.
Interview by Mark Beese, Marketing
Director of Holland & Hart.
(303) 295-8000.
 Frontier's
television commercials
www.frontierairlines.com
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