Funny thing happened this week. Actually it started last week and has only picked up momentum this week.

Former Continental Chairman and CEO Gordon Bethune seems to have taken center stage in the Delta/US Airways saga.

In the last 7 days or so, it seems like Gordon has made himself available to various media outlets left and right, more than happy to bask in the glow of his role of “adviser” to the Delta creditors committee.

I mean, how weird is this?

Does the creditors committee really want him out there saying things like Reuters quoted him today as having said in an interview? (Today he was quoted as saying, “Delta’s creditors’ interests are so diverse that getting enough of them to back any proposal is “like herding cats.”)

Or can Doug Parker and the folks at US Airways feel good when Bethune, who we all know is a proponent of industry consolidation, seems to take a big pass on recommending the deal in the same interview, as he makes the comment, “I can still be a proponent of marriage without agreeing that these two people have to get married.”

Yack, yack, yack. You were hired to do a task Gordo, not become the equivalent of Pat O’Brien offering up the latest “dish” on The Insider.



Just seems to me that now that Bethune is involved in this, he is obviously encouraging more and more media coverage of his involvement in it, i.e., it certainly doesn’t seem like he is telling reporters he won’t talk to them.

Consequently, for some reason I don’t see him simply turning in his time slip to the creditors committee when his job as “adviser” is done and then going back home.

Or I the only one who thinks Gordon might just be getting a little too used to the limelight again — and might now want to stay there as part of any eventual Delta deal that is struck?

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