Success Quote by Gerard Arpey

Spoken like a memo that wants to sound like a mission statement, Gerard Arpey’s line is all about translating a hard corporate reality into a disciplined, almost moral imperative: cut costs or lose. The phrasing is telling. “First” frames cost reduction not as one lever among many, but as the prerequisite for everything else the airline hopes to do. In an industry where the product is often indistinguishable and customers shop by price, “competitive” becomes a euphemism for austerity.

The subtext is less about efficiency than about power. “Prevent the lower-cost airlines from pushing us out” casts rivals as an external threat, but the real audience is internal: labor, managers, and shareholders. This is a classic CEO move during the post-deregulation airline era, especially as carriers like Southwest (and later JetBlue, Spirit, etc.) turned legacy cost structures into existential liabilities. By naming “the markets we want to serve,” Arpey quietly concedes retreat elsewhere. It’s strategy as triage, presented as focus.

Then comes the psychological nudge: “We’ve made great progress... but we need to keep pushing.” Progress is the sugar; pushing is the medicine. It signals that cuts have already happened and more are coming, while attempting to maintain buy-in by framing pain as momentum. The line also sidesteps the uncomfortable question airlines always face: if the only durable answer is cheaper, what’s left of the premium brand promise? Arpey’s intent is to normalize a new baseline where survival is measured in pennies per seat-mile, and culture is recalibrated to accept that as destiny.