Robert Forman Six (June 25, 1907 – October 6, 1986) was the CEO of Continental Airlines from 1936 to 1980.
His career began in the earliest days of U.S.
commercial aviation; his determined, scrappy, risk-taking nature paid off for Continental Airlines, the company that would for 45 years be forged in his image.
Owing in large part to the foundation he laid, Continental became one of the largest and most profitable legacy airlines in the world.Six was one of the last of the group of innovators, pioneers, and visionaries (including Juan Trippe, William A.
Patterson, Jack Frye, C.R.
Smith, and Eddie Rickenbacker) who built the airline industry into what it is today.
Six saw his own airline grow from a tiny, three-stop operation into a major global network airline with services spanning the U.S.
and Canada, extending to Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America.