Gordon Bethune isn’t backing down. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

In a recent interview at the Asian Cultural Center in New York, I asked the outspoken, iconoclastic former CEO of Continental Airlines to clarify a remark he made about Dr. David Dao, the passenger who was dragged off a United flight back in April. Immediately after the incident Bethune had called the passenger “immature.”

Did Bethune stand by that characterization? In a word, yes.

“In our country and, I’m sure, everywhere in the world, when the authorities, like the police, say ma’am or sir, would you get out of the car, you need to get out of the car. That’s the authority. They’re the law. And you don’t fight with police. Because it doesn’t get better, it gets worse. They’re not going to go away. So you need to cooperate when the law says to do it,” Bethune said to me.

“Now, if they’re wrong, you correct that later and get compensated, or apologize, or whatever. But you don’t tell the policeman ‘no’ if he gives you a legal order. And these were policemen. They were not employees. Employees never touched anyone.

“But this doctor didn’t want to do what the police told him to do. It’s like your child that doesn’t want to go to bed and wants to watch TV. And you need to get to bed, you know? It’s your bedtime. That’s how you grow up. You’re not five years old.

“And so I’m sorry for the doctor. But the doctor was acting like a five-year-old who just said, oh, I’m not going to do it. Well, the police are going to make you do it. That’s the way it works. The thing to do, mature people, is to say OK and then get up and do it like everyone else.

“So I didn’t mean an aspersion against a 69-year-old man. I know he was disappointed. He wasn’t treated well. But some of it was his fault for not obeying the orders and doing it in a civilized way. And that’s too bad, but not his fault. And they’ve made lots of mistakes, which I think they’ve apologized, and rightfully, for. But I didn’t mean to say he was stupid. I just meant that he was acting in a way that most people, when given a lawful order by the police, they say OK. They do it.”

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Bethune, who led Continental from 1994 to 2004 (that airline merged with United in 2010), acknowledged that all kinds of mistakes were made by United. He also vigorously disputed the notion that the doctor was singled out because he was Asian. Discrimination like that is “just not going to happen.”

Gordon Bethune in April 23, 2003 in Houston, Texas. (James Nielsen/Getty Images)

Bethune is also famous for being one of the best leaders in the history of the airline business. Employees, it was said, loved to work for him. Why was that?

Bethune answered with a story.

“Fifteen years ago in the New York area, upper New England, the electrical power failed, the whole grid, Friday, about 4 o’clock. New York— all black, the whole place, no lights, no nothing. Now the airport has emergency power, but the terminal doesn’t. And so JFK, at that time, was big American. They canceled 200 flights that day. United and Delta at LaGuardia, they had fewer flights, but they canceled all of theirs. We were really big in Newark, big time, and some in LaGuardia. We canceled seven flights — seven.

“People were in taxis at JFK. And they heard that Continental’s still flying. And they went all the way from upper Queens to Newark. And we had people on the curb with flashlights. And they’d look at your ticket. And if it was a first class ticket, big bucks, come with me. And they would walk you through a dark terminal. They would hand wand — this is before 9/11 — look through your bag — still dark — walk you through a dark terminal to an airplane. Had lights on the airplane, it was full— boom, off to San Francisco.

“We made $2 million dollars that night. I said, turn the lights off every night. This is really good, you know? We’re making a lot of money. But in Wall Street, two weeks later, the analysts were saying, why were you flying and everybody else was canceling. Because our employees wanted to. That’s what you got to get them to do, want to do it.

In a Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 photo, a stranded traveler sleeps in the baggage claim area at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. A blackout that had cascaded from Ohio affected 50 million people. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

“If the employee’s ambivalent, then things get in their way. If they hate your guts, they’re glad they’re in your way. But if they want to do it, leave them alone, let them figure it out, and you will get that. So what’s the return on investment of treating your employees with respect, proper rewards, and working as a team so that they’re not playing against each other? It’s $2 million. You know, it’s real money.

“You don’t ask your controller to decide how much you should pay on employee recognition, because he just sees the expense. But it really has revenue behind it because of the cost. We used to give away cars. If you showed up for work every day you were supposed to work for six months, you were eligible for a brand-new Ford Explorer. We paid for it, eight — eight of them every six months.

“And then last year, I did every six months. Because if you got sick in January, I didn’t want you to blow it off. But if you showed up for work, that means I didn’t have to find a replacement. I didn’t have to pay overtime. I didn’t have to pay your sick leave. And guess what, all you wanted was the car. Guess what the cars cost? Nothing. Zada. Nero. We saved more money.

“And people, on Christmas — and this is almost the end of the year now, and your perfect attendance — they came to work. Nobody wants to work Christmas. They have families. They want to call in sick and be home, you know? No, they didn’t call in sick, came to work. That’s money. That’s money in your pocket.”

I also asked Bethune a question that’s long vexed me about flying. Is it really necessary to turn off your cellphone for takeoffs and landings?

“No,” Bethune said.

Some refreshing candor there.

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Andy Serwer is Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief. Read more: