• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic

3

Ray Dalio says the U.S. just had its 'Suez moment'—and history says what comes next could end an empire

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic

3

Ray Dalio says the U.S. just had its 'Suez moment'—and history says what comes next could end an empire
SuccessProductivity

Frontier Airlines CEO thinks workers got ‘lazy’ during the pandemic: ‘Seriously, people are still allowing people to work from home’

Orianna Rosa Royle
By
Orianna Rosa Royle
Orianna Rosa Royle
Associate Editor, Success
Down Arrow Button Icon
Orianna Rosa Royle
By
Orianna Rosa Royle
Orianna Rosa Royle
Associate Editor, Success
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 14, 2023, 8:06 AM ET
Barry Biffle, CEO, Frontier Airlines
Barry Biffle is among a growing cohort of CEOs to voice their disdain for remote working and push for the return to more traditional work practices Matthew Staver/Bloomberg — Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

It isn’t just Tesla founder Elon Musk that thinks workers (or more specifically, remote workers) are “lazy”—Frontier Airlines chief executive, Barry Biffle, recently weighed in on the debate.

Recommended Video

“We got lazy in COVID,” the budget airline boss complained at an investor conference hosted by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday. “I mean seriously, people are still allowing people to work from home. All this silliness, right? All that’s out the window.”

Like many businesses, Biffle said that Frontier Airlines is responding to dampened demand amid the economic slowdown by doubling down on cutting costs and boosting productivity—but, he insisted, his business woes reflect a “society-wide” phenomenon.

“We’re not alone in this. You hear every company out there talking about productivity challenges,” he added.

Without specifying what actions the company might take, Biffle, who has more than 20 years of aviation industry experience, outlined the issues currently facing his company: A dip in demand for domestic flights, increasing fuel costs, and more staff on payroll post-pandemic.

“When we look at overhead versus 2019 adjusted for capacity, it’s up dramatically,” Biffle said. “Why do I have more people per plane in overhead than I had in 2019? It’s because they’re not as productive.”

Frontier Airlines didn’t respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Not the first CEO to complain about post-pandemic productivity

Biffle is among a growing cohort of chiefs to voice their disdain for remote working and push for the return to more traditional work practices—in an office, five days a week—now that the pandemic has subsided.

“All the COVID stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard,” Elon Musk wrote on Twitter, now X, last year. 

The billionaire made it his first order of business to end Twitter’s “work from anywhere” policy when he took its helm. He has also taken the same approach at SpaceX and Tesla, where he wants workers in the office for at least 40 hours a week and has praised staff who work through the night “burning the 3 a.m. oil”.

Just last week, an Australian CEO similarly complained that workers’ insistence that they have earned the right to work from home, after around three years of doing so during the pandemic, is damaging the economy.

“Employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around,” Australian luxury real estate Gurner Group’s chief executive Tim Gurner, said at an Australian Financial Review conference.

“We’ve got to kill that attitude, and that has to come through hurting the economy,” he continued.

Even the staunchest supporters of remote working have seemingly changed their tune. Salesforce’s co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg both ditched their ultra-flexible work policies this year for RTO mandates. 

Why? Because employees who work in person “get more done”, according to Zuckerberg. Meanwhile, Benioff echoed that new staffers  “do better if they’re in the office”.

Are workers less productive from home? 

Employers across the globe have sounded the back-to-work klaxon in the name of productivity. In the U.K., the train ticket seller Trainline has seen a 23% jump in sales this year as more people commute to their desks. Meanwhile, some 1 million office workers have been ordered back to the office in the States. 

However, research has consistently shown that workers can be just as productive—if not more so—from home, than at a desk next to noisy peers. McKinsey analyzed 2,000 tasks and 800 job types and found that around a third of all work could be done remotely without any loss of productivity.

Still, there’s a discrepancy in how productive remote working is depending on who you ask: Employees generally think they’re more productive while working from home, but managers tend to disagree. This could be because, as reported in Fortune, workers add their commute into their mental calculation of how productive they are, whereas managers don’t.

For now, it seems employers and employees have found a happy medium: Although a whopping 90% of companies plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024, the share of companies requiring full-time office attendance is declining.

The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what’s next for the American economy, Nov. 16-17 in Detroit. Apply here.
About the Author
Orianna Rosa Royle
By Orianna Rosa RoyleAssociate Editor, Success
Instagram iconLinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Orianna Rosa Royle is the Success associate editor at Fortune, overseeing careers, leadership, and company culture coverage. She was previously the senior reporter at Management Today, Britain's longest-running publication for CEOs. 

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Success

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Success

lb
PoliticsCongress
Leon Black says Epstein’s network included Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel, while saying ‘I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde’
By Joey Cappelletti and The Associated PressJune 26, 2026
5 hours ago
John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe
SuccessJobs
Stripe cofounder says Gen Z will need two college majors to compete thanks to AI—and investing legend Charlie Munger called it first
By Emma BurleighJune 26, 2026
5 hours ago
young woman looking frustrated while working on her laptop at home
SuccessCareers
Gen Z’s hiring hell is real: 1 in 3 employers admit they’re replacing entry-level roles with AI—and tech and manufacturing jobs are most at risk
By Preston ForeJune 26, 2026
5 hours ago
mj
CommentarySuccession
Morgan Stanley on life after selling your business: a roadmap for entrepreneurs
By Mark JansenJune 26, 2026
9 hours ago
Singapore grads battle low-paid trainee stigma to get hired
AsiaSingapore
Singapore grads battle low-paid trainee stigma to get hired
By Gabrielle Ng and BloombergJune 26, 2026
11 hours ago
kid
SuccessSocial Media
Kids want to be influencers when they grow up, because they ‘gets lots of money’ and ‘they want to be famous’
By Matthew Simoneau and The ConversationJune 26, 2026
12 hours ago

Most Popular

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
Success
MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year
By Sydney LakeJune 25, 2026
2 days ago
Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic
Success
Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJune 24, 2026
3 days ago
Ray Dalio says the U.S. just had its 'Suez moment'—and history says what comes next could end an empire
Economy
Ray Dalio says the U.S. just had its 'Suez moment'—and history says what comes next could end an empire
By Nick LichtenbergJune 26, 2026
13 hours ago
The bond market knows something about the $39 trillion national debt that Washington doesn’t
Economy
The bond market knows something about the $39 trillion national debt that Washington doesn’t
By Eva RoytburgJune 25, 2026
23 hours ago
Trump turns on Big Oil donors who spent nearly $100 million to get him elected—now he wants the DOJ to investigate them for price gouging
Economy
Trump turns on Big Oil donors who spent nearly $100 million to get him elected—now he wants the DOJ to investigate them for price gouging
By Tristan BoveJune 25, 2026
24 hours ago
Current price of oil as of June 25, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 25, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 25, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.