After the Virgin Birth

Fred Reid, CEO of the fledgling carrier Virgin America, talks management strategy and explains his beef with airline food

Fast Company, November 1, 2007 — Fred Reid looks as if he could have played John Glenn in The Right Stuff. But the CEO of Virgin America--the new low-cost airline partly backed (but fully branded) by British entrepreneur Richard Branson--is a character all his own. As the president of Delta (NYSE:DAL), he launched the ill-fated, low-cost Song. (What did he learn from the experience? "Damn little," he says.) As the president and COO of Lufthansa (OTC:DLAKY), he was the first American to lead a major non-U.S. carrier. We caught up with the razor-tongued Reid, 57, in New York, one of the five cities his airline currently serves.