Originally Posted by
San Gottardo
I am a bit surprised how un-nuanced the negative feedback is on AdJ. Was he a great CEO? No. Did he manoeuvre AFKL out of the roughs? Aboslutely not. So I am not saying that he was to AFKL what Carlos Ghosn (another foreign CEO in a French "national asset" company!) was to Nissan.
But, the company is less indebted than before, he understood that cheapening the AF mainline product wouldn't get them anywhere, he kicked off some good initiatives like Transavia (the details and execution of which turn a good idea in a bad idea though), he made big progress for getting the "digital disruption" right, he didn't shy away from stopping some idiocies like the BdP, and he didn't shy away from confronting AF labour. And frankly, the AF product quality improved.
I am much more negative than you indeed. For one thing, I think that he absolutely shied away from confronting AF labour! Remember the recent announcement when with the very first financial improvement noted, he accepted to completely cancel the plan to reduce the scope of activities and halt the latest departure plans and indeed accepted the notion that with return to profit, in fact, AF will need to recruit more??! I think it is ludicrous and that for that matter the lower losses and sight of possible return to profit is merely do to the collapse of oil prices and the improved results of KL. In fact, the financial gap between AFKL's results and BA and LH ones has widened and not reduced under AdJ's leadership.
I personally think that the Transavia plan is perfectly idiotic and a near guaranteed timebomb within the AFKL's portfolio, and frankly, none of the structural weaknesses of AF have been sorted.
I actually very much agree with you that the AF premium product has significantly improved in both P and J, but I do not think that this equate to a successful leadership. In fact, IMHO, he has been a total failure so indeed, a very un-nuanced criticism on my part.