Jacob Goldstein

On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Julio Torres says he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone.

Really?

Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard.

Well, if we were a retailer, we would, you know, some maybe some high service airlines in the world would think of themselves as a Nordstrom's or something.

And maybe I bet if you were going to talk to the guys at JetBlue, they'd say maybe we're Target or maybe even trying to become a little better than Target.

We're Dollar General.

That's where we're not even Walmart.

We're Dollar General.

And we like being Dollar General because we save people lots of money.

I'll turn the lights out for you.

Look, one bulb in those three goes on.

That's the only thing that turns on when I turn the lights on in this office.

one bulb in those three, there's no reason for me to waste that money.

I spent over 20 years in what people think of as the traditional airline business.

I worked for American, Northwest, Continental Airlines, U.S.

Airways, an airline down in Central America.

And all those airlines were the same in the sense that their purpose in life was to try to attract a higher fare customer.

I would go to bed at night thinking, how can I get you to pay more for your ticket?

Rather than an airline that was going to compete for our customers on any other basis, any sort of physical product or experience or, you know, Zagat score or anything like that, right?

It's going to be cheap.