CEOs share their biggest lesson learned

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly

A: “Biggest lesson? That's easy. No matter how good you are, if you don't have a team you don't have anything. Everything Southwest achieves is totally because we are a team.”

Air Astana Peter Foster president and CEO

A: “Take care of the details and the big picture will look after itself.”

Retired TSA Administrator John Pistole

A: “The importance of collaboration and partnership in making transformational change.”

Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza

A: “Take note of what customers most want and pay attention to all the details.”

Star Alliance CEO Mark Schwab

A: “To wake up every single day thinking of a way to create more value for the members.”

London Heathrow Director-Airline Business Development Andy Garner

A: “Success through collaboration and working together. That is my simple philosophy.”

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L-3 Link UK managing director Alan Crawford

A: “I’d say that change is constant. And that as a company and as an individual you have to continually adapt and try and keep ahead of technological changes, industry changes, and market changes in order to be successful.”

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam

A: “History is circular; everything has its own time. Economies grow and decline, there are recessions and recoveries, airlines succeed and fail. Even some ideas have their own time. The secret is taking advantage of that particular time. That is a big lesson.”

Lufthansa regional sales manager Ann Boykin

A: “The thing that our competition cannot replicate is our people. Our employees are the key/secret to our long-term success.”

Just Asking is a forum where ATW editors put a single question to key industry players. The question this time went to the winning recipients of the 41^st Annual ATW Achievement Awards.

Q: What is the biggest lesson learned of your career?

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