SOARING BUSINESS
Porter CEO Robert Deluce shares a day in the life of airline management,
If his grandparents had their way, Porter Airlines CEO Robert Deluce would’ve been the town doctor in a northern Ontario community of 800 people. He opted instead to drop out of university and figure out a path that would let him stay close to the things he loved most — his family, flying, hunting and fishing. The head of Porter Airlines offered insight into what he thinks has made Porter as popular as it is today.
Do you think the pedestrian tunnel to the island ended up being a better outcome for Porter than the cancelled pedestrian bridge would’ve been?
The bridge, as good an idea as that was, is now dated, and we’re probably fortunate in retrospect that the pedestrian tunnel ended up being the ultimate solution. Because as nice as a bridge might’ve been in the summer months, the bridge would’ve had to open four times an hour to let boat traffic through, and now boats can go back and forth without any hindrance and our passengers can also go back and forth without having to be concerned about being late for an appointment or a flight. It does change the entire travel equation and makes it an overall better experience.
What do you look for when you hire people?
One of the things we say to people who are contemplating joining an airline is that, fundamentally, we’re a customer-service organization and we happen to fly airplanes. We take the flying of those aircraft very seriously. But without happy customers, you really have nothing. You need to keep that in mind because you can be overwhelmed by the fact that you’re in an airport, going to all these nice destinations in some shiny new aircraft.
We have the ability — all of us, whether you’re front-line team members or you’re back room in an accounting office or elsewhere — to bring about some significant change and influence the outcome of an
How closely do you manage things on the ground?
It would be naive for any one individual, a CEO or anyone else within the company, to think that somehow it all revolves around them. It’s a team effort and requires everyone to buy into the culture and to work toward it. It’s about leading by example and managing through direct contact with individuals on a regular basis. I subscribe to the management philosophy of being quite active in our workplace and spending a fair bit of time with our team members and our customers.
I don’t think we’re guilty of micromanaging, but we’re in a business where the devil is in the details and you have to get the detail right.
I get more out of going down to Union Station, getting onto one of our shuttle buses and going to the bottom end of Bathurst St., and either walking through the tunnel or going across on our ferry, with the opportunity to talk to our team members and passengers, than by driving my car on the bottom deck of the ferry and doing emails the entire time I’m in transition.
How do you stay healthy and manage your work and personal life?
I’m known as an early riser. I start my day fairly early and work in a bit of exercise pretty much every day. My typical day, and I’m always reticent to tell people this, starts around 3:30 or 4 a.m.
I’ll always start off with a review of what happened the day before, catch up on emails, look at the schedule for the day and probably run — I’m talking 3 or 4 times a week at least. A session at the gym, which is only a couple of minutes away from where I live. And then I’m set up to do a breakfast meeting at 7 a.m. and be in my office shortly after 8 a.m. You’re well on your way at that point, and you feel like you’ve set yourself up at an early stage and are running on all cylinders by the time some others might only be thinking about getting up. You always have to balance that with the exercise.
We like to spend a bit of time away from the city, at least on the weekends. I don’t usually go for more than a weekend, but I do look forward to being in cottage country in July and August.
What’s something people don’t know about you?
I actually set out to be a doctor at one point in time. I probably had all the wrong motives for pursuing that and I didn’t go very far. I changed my mind before I started university, and I liked aviation — it was already in my blood by then.
I may well have been a suitable doctor, but at an early stage, I enjoyed being around the family business, which involved aircraft, fishing and hunting, and I’ve never moved away from that.
Even in high school, I acquired my flying licence almost at the same time as I was getting my driver’s licence. It seemed like a natural thing, and I still fly today.