Originally Posted by bernardd

Have you thought how similar the current position of the US carriers is to the one BA found itself in prior to privatization? For those too young to remember BA was essentially bankrupt; kept alive by drip feeds of taxpayers money. The reason BA survived and prospered was because King and Marshall had a vision of of how to create a profitable airline, and the skill and service industry knowledge to get there. There have been people in the US industry who had that marketing 'feel', who knew where to position the business, how to build brands and how to run operations, but sadly I don't think ANY of the current leaders of the six legacies fall into that category. The guys who do seem to have a clue are in Southwest (though Kelleher has retired now) and JetBlue, though their operations skill lagged the vision and leadership.


Oh, and in case you're wondering, I think one of the reasons BA has been sliding (though not as fast as AA!) is because of the leadership.