The Sky's The Limit

By Sally Donnelly

Only a generation ago, a woman who wanted a career in aviation could expect to climb only as high as purser, or head flight attendant on a passenger jet. But last year a woman was named president of the world's most successful airline. Every major U.S. airline has at least one woman in a top executive position. Six of the nation's nine largest carriers have a woman as general counsel--the highest concentration in any major U.S. industry. Women have even taken over such traditionally male posts as chief financial officer and chief of pilots. And their colleagues, male and female, say these women are changing the way the airlines do business.

Airline CEOs say that while many of their male managers have emphasized hardware and thought of their job as moving planes efficiently from place to place, women executives seem to understand more clearly that they are in a service business--and that happy workers make for happy customers. Roughly half of airline employees are women, as are a growing number of frequent flyers. "There were very few women business travelers 20 years ago, and consequently the airlines didn't cater to them," says George Hamlin, an aviation consultant based in Washington. "Now women are not only an important part of the customer base, but the women who joined the airlines two decades ago have moved into management positions, where they can adapt airline policies to attract female customers."

Here's a look at six of the most influential women in the airline business today:

SHELLEY LONGMUIR SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED AIRLINES (cover)

Longmuir serves as her airline's top executive for governmental, regulatory and international affairs and compares the job to "playing 3-D global chess." A former corporate lawyer in New York City, she worked closely with then Transportation Secretary Andy Card, currently the White House chief of staff, and in 1992 helped coordinate federal disaster-relief efforts after Hurricane Andrew. She then went to work for United Airlines, now the world's second largest carrier, after American Airlines, and has been its voice in Washington--and foreign capitals--since 1993.

Longmuir, 46, credits Card and some of her other male bosses with "being so gender blind that they had more confidence in my abilities than I did." She believes women "are more comfortable working in teams, and that is an advantage in such a complex business" as aviation. She helped United make the transition to an employee-owned corporation, oversaw its successful international expansion and coordinated the Washington angle of the bold yet ultimately unsuccessful merger attempt with US Airways.

As the fortunes of U.S. airlines become more dependent on government regulations and largesse, Longmuir's experience in Washington is raising her profile. A smooth talker who double-majored in semiotics and Shakespearean literature at Brown University, Longmuir will need all her skills to deliver on the $1.8 billion loan application United has submitted to the government's airline stabilization board.

ANDREA SCHNEIDER VICE PRESIDENT, ALASKA AIRLINES

Sometimes it's the small things that Andy Schneider finds the most rewarding. Acting as both a mother of four and Alaska Airlines' vice president in charge of operations at 49 U.S and foreign airports, she oversaw construction of a larger, fully staffed room at the airline's hub in Seattle-Tacoma, Wash., in which unaccompanied minors can safely wait for their connecting flight. Schneider also helped improve the process for tracking kids on connecting flights and got TVs and vcrs for the waiting rooms. "Those rooms are improvements that matter not just to our customers," she says, "but are also important to our employees"--who suggested the special waiting areas. "It's part of trying to encourage new ideas."

Four years ago, when she was managing the airline's flight attendants, Schneider gave them universal e-mail access and allowed them to bid for their schedules online, a move that turned out to be a big time saver for the employees and a money saver for the company. A former accountant, Schneider, 37, moved through management of the in-flight service department to the male-dominated operational side of the airline in 1998. While much of her work involves drab buildings and heavy equipment, the Seattle-based executive reminds colleagues that "an airline is a people business." An avid jogger who enjoys spending time with her kids at the family retreat in Idaho, Schneider says, "I hope I serve as a role model for younger women who value both work and balance in their lives."

JOAN OSTERMAN DIRECTOR OF PROPERTIES AND FACILITIES, FRONTIER AIRLINES

This former nurse couldn't stand the "female" airline departments. She burned out in the reservation center "because of the intense phone work," and customer service wasn't really working out either. Then she was pulled in to help the man running the properties department for Continental Airlines in Denver. Osterman found her niche. "That," she says emphatically, "was fun because of the diversity and challenge of the work."

Osterman, 55, joined Frontier Airlines four years ago and makes sure the infrastructure is in place for the Denver-based low-cost carrier to keep expanding. (Frontier is one of the few airlines that have added cities since Sept. 11.) She negotiates leases, strikes deals with contractors and supervises all the airline's construction projects, including the new headquarters building completed last year.

Osterman comes from a family of engineers. She grew up on a farm and has always been fascinated with how things are put together. Some of her most interesting work experiences, Osterman says, come from sitting around the negotiating table and watching the jockeying that goes on between large airlines and smaller competitors for everything from airport space to baggage-system access. "Once when another airline doctored some figures and presented them in public, I didn't shout or even object," she says, recalling a wrangle about an airport issue. "I waited until after the meeting and bluntly told [the executive] that we would be getting the real figures before we went forward. We got what we wanted."

A colleague jokingly refers to Osterman as the Black Widow for her stealthy effectiveness. She concedes that she makes it a priority in meetings to read her counterparts' body language and mood. "I'm not sure if that's a female way of doing things--it's just mine," she says. "I'm just working out how to get what I want."

KAREN LEE CREW RESOURCES MANAGER, UNITED PARCEL SERVICE

Thirty-six years after she first earned her pilot's license, Lee still gets excited when she talks about flying. She is one of the few women certified to fly aviation's biggest bird, the Boeing 747. "It's a pilot's ego plane," she says. "I still get a thrill out of cranking it up and taking off for distant places."

And what places she has been--learning to fly at 17 on a small grass strip in East Stroudsburg, Pa., moving to fly for Shamrock Airlines in Puerto Rico in 1972 because no U.S. airline would hire a female pilot, and in 1978 becoming the first woman pilot hired by Trans World Airlines, then the most glamorous airline going. (Her dad worked there as a pilot. Her mom was a housewife.) Lee was hired by United Parcel Service in 1985 to help expand its air-shipping fleet, and is now the first woman to oversee the company's 2,527 pilots. She has also directed the adoption of new technology to reduce runway collisions--one of aviation safety's most serious threats.

Lee, 51, says the rules of acceptance have been simple for her. "As pilots, we are graded by our compatibility with the person we're flying with, by our professionalism and abilities as pilots," she says. "The grades are given out regardless of race and gender. It's satisfying to see that women in the cockpit are now unremarkable within the pilot world." She doesn't think she approaches her job differently than a man, except perhaps in one respect. "I'll admit when I don't know something," she says, laughing. "I'm not sure some of my colleagues would think that's a career-enhancing style."

COLLEEN BARRETT PRESIDENT AND COO, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

Some male executives at other airlines still treat her like the secretary she once was, but Barrett can afford to ignore them. Her company is profitable; theirs are not. "I'm much more concerned about what our customers think about us and how we're treating them," she says. In Barrett's 30 years in and around the executive suite (starting as a legal secretary in 1967 for Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher), the results have been spectacular. Southwest is the only major U.S. airline that didn't dip into the red last year, continuing its 29 years of consecutive profitability.

That record is due in large part to an employee culture that Barrett, 57, is credited with nurturing. The divorced grandmother and Willie Nelson fan has devoted her life to Southwest and still tries to read every customer letter the airline receives. As the self-described "mother hen" of the carrier's 35,000 workers, she encouraged a family atmosphere long before it became fashionable. Birthdays, anniversaries and other significant events in an employee's life are noted with a card from Barrett's office. The airline has endured only one strike in three decades. Employee morale is boosted not only by the airline's sense of fun but also by its profit-sharing plan, an industry first that started in 1974; workers own about 10% of company stock.

Barrett keeps the door to her modest, windowless office at Southwest's Dallas headquarters open. She spends several weeks a year meeting with employees in the 58 cities served by the airline. And, of course, she always flies coach. Southwest does not have first class or business class on its planes. Her photo appears in a feature called "Colleen's Corner" in the in-flight magazine, and she's slightly uncomfortable when recognized by passengers--even though most approach her to praise the airline. Some industry veterans question her influence, given her lack of interest in the financial side of the business, but Barrett has always maintained she is the heart, not the head, of the airline.

She believes that emphasis on employee satisfaction--and its downstream result, superior customer service--comes more naturally to women than men. That may help explain why 10 of the top 24 executives at Southwest are women. "It would be great for the industry if more women were running things," says Barrett. The downside for Southwest may be seeing its rivals get better at pleasing workers and travelers.

MICHELE BURNS CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, DELTA AIRLINES

She grew up in the small town of Rincon, Ga., and retains an easygoing Southern accent. But make no mistake--Burns moves fast. Within four hours after two competitors' aircraft hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, Burns realized the likely effect on Delta Airlines' revenue and shifted $450 million, borrowed on lines of credit, into Delta's checking account. Just days later, Burns persuaded banks to follow through with an additional $1.2 billion in cash from a financing deal initiated on Sept. 5.

At 44, Burns is something of a pioneer. An avid hiker who likes to spend time at her North Carolina cabin, she became the first female CFO of a major airline two years ago, after becoming the first woman partner in the Atlanta office of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. "Most airlines echo the military structure, where many of the executives used to come from," she says, "but Delta has evolved into an organization that you might say is more welcoming to a female style. We reach across the company and use a team approach. And we don't follow the chain of command to the nth degree."

That's not to say Burns is touchy-feely. Like other airline CFOs, she is grappling with a slow return to pre-recession, pre-9/11 passenger traffic. Although Delta lost $1.27 billion in 2001, a top government official says Burns' financing savvy had a calming effect on Wall Street last fall. "Male or female, if an executive can help an airline grow in the toughest economic environment in years," observes consultant Hamlin, "then he or she will be rewarded regardless of gender." That's what women have wanted for years.

CORRECTION In the June 10 story "Cheaper Tickets," Time incorrectly described contracts between online travel agency Orbitz and its participating airlines. Those contracts do not prevent the carriers from selling their discounted fares on other travel websites.