Song's Startup Flight Plan

By: Scott KirsnerWed Dec 19, 2007 at 12:40 AM

How does an established corporate giant (in this case, Delta Air Lines) respond to disastrous economic circumstances and the rise of a new breed of competitors that operate by different rules? By creating a whole new operation (in this case, Song) that runs by those rules, and then trying to fly beyond the competition. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the ambitious flight plan and bumpy launch of an internal startup.

A make-or-break question at Song is whether the executives and employees of an established operation can fill their startup with new ideas. Song will try to turn its planes around in 50 minutes, which, if successful, could allow it to tack on an extra flight each day. It will try to board planes with just one gate agent, by using video instructions on big plasma screens.

The startup team isn't afraid to experiment with unorthodox boarding procedures -- such as boarding all window seats first, then the centers, then the aisles -- if they can save time. "[Song president John Selvaggio] says, 'Hit me with ideas. If you give me a hundred, and one is good, then we're all better off than we were before,' " says Joe Serratelli, Song's vice president of productivity. Selvaggio refers to this openness to ideas as his "one sigma" approach. "A Six Sigma, zero-defect approach to stimulating new ideas is too limiting," Selvaggio explains. "We want to give people the freedom to express the one or two far-out ideas they might have."

At an early meeting about food, for example, someone blurted out this idea: Why not let passengers vote products on and off the plane? As a result of that, Song passengers will now be able to use the Web to determine which products make it onto the carts. Says Selvaggio: "That was part of a long thought process about how we can give passengers more control in an environment where the airline is always telling you when you can go to the bathroom and when you can use your laptop."

Scott Kirsner (kirsner@att.net) is a Fast Company contributing editor based in Boston. Visit Song on the Web (www.flysong.com).