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From Huffington Post:
"Gordon Bethune is a brash Texan (as is Herb Kelleher, coincidentally) who is
best known for turning Continental Airlines around "From Worst to First," a
story told in his book of the same title from 1998. He wanted to make sure
that both customers and employees liked the way Continental treated them,
so he made it very clear that the maxim "the customer is always right" didn't
hold sway at Continental.

In conflicts between employees and unruly customers he would consistently
side with his people. Here's how he put it:

When we run into customers that we can't reel back in, our loyalty is with our
employees. They have to put up with this stuff every day. Just because you
buy a ticket does not give you the right to abuse our employees ...
We run more than 3 million people through our books every month. One or
two of those people are going to be unreasonable, demanding jerks. When it's
a choice between supporting your employees, who work with you every day
and make your product what it is, or some irate jerk who demands a free
ticket to Paris because you ran out of peanuts, whose side are you going to be
on?
You can't treat your employees like serfs. You have to value them ... If they
think that you won't support them when a customer is out of line, even the
smallest problem can cause resentment."

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