I was thinking about the lack of empowerment and common sense in airlines (with one or two exceptions) these days and remembered something from this WIKI entry about Robert Six and Continental.  I’ve also read it in Robert Serling’s book about Continental.  The quote is:

According to Six biographer Robert Serling, quality was the watchword in every detail of Continental’s operations in the 1960s and 1970s.  In one anecdotal indication of Six’s passion for premium customer service, every page of the airline’s Customer Service Manual was inscribed with these words: “Nothing in this manual supersedes common sense.”

Imagine that being in an airline manual today.  Kind of hard isn’t it?

Filed under: Airline History by ajax