William “Pat” Patterson and United Air Lines

Anthony J. Mayo, Nitin Nohria and Mark Rennella

Chapter Chapter 6 in Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders, 2009, pp 129-148 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In 1953, Selig Altschul, a prominent writer and consultant on aviation, cited one main reason for the persistent strength of United Air Lines in the airline industry since the early 1930s: “United was probably the first company to bring full-scale business methods and organization to air transportation.”1 Some observers of the aviation industry have minimized United’s success because of its conservative business methods, but it is difficult to argue with the company’s results over the long-haul: “United … consistently held to about 20% of the total passenger revenues generated by all trunk and local service airlines.”2 Having been selected as one of the primary air carriers during the tumultuous 1930s shake-out of the airline industry, United and its CEO, William “Pat” Patterson, chose to take a cautious and deliberate process of securing its dominance in the industry. During the second phase of the airline industry’s evolution, United, like its counterpart American Airlines, sought ways to establish and protect the dominant business model that fit within the confines of government regulation.

Keywords: Feeder Line; Airline Industry; Maintenance Facility; American Airline; Airline Service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-10095-4_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230100954

DOI: 10.1057/9780230100954_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().