Originally Posted by
NickB
Acquisition in other European Member States goes back to a little earlier, viz early 90s, which corresponds to the liberalisation of the EU internal market in aviation (the so-called "third package", that fully liberalised EU air transport was adopted in 1992) although it did continue more or less throughout the decade.
To be fair, BA was in the same boat as a number of major European airlines at the time. The EU internal market in aviation had just been liberated and nobody quite knew what to expect and many airlines thought that investing in airlines in other Member States was the way forward. LH and SAS took participation in BMI, KLM acquired Air UK, Air France acquired Cityjet, not to mention the disastrous acquisition policy followed by Swissair a little later.
I do not think that the European acquisitions were a sign of BA "losing its way" and "neglecting the core business" but rather one of dipping your toe in the water in the presence of an uncertain future.
Indeed. And for what it's worth, when a lot of people complain about what BA "has become" as opposed to "what it was", or to what they still like about BA, the reference point are service innovations when the OP considers that BA "lost its ways". It is the time when BA first applied for the TATL joint venture, the time of linking FFPs with AA and the launch of OW, investment on own maintenance, the new Club World with full flat beds (May 1999), the purchase of CityFlyer, the move to an all Airbus shorthaul fleet, etc.
By contrast, things like the purchase of TAT dates back to 1992 in the midst of the Landor livery period, and does not make the Landor livery any less nice. In fact, I fully agree with
NickB that it was an ambitious yet measured way of trying to explore the new opportunities afforded by the single market and regulatory changes and BA was actually absolutely right to try to see if it could make it work. Airlines like AF were a lot more timid about it and I don't think that was a positive sign at all. BA tried, it perhaps did not work s well as they would have ideally hoped, and they then rethought their strategy, just as they did with the possibility of creating a low cost arm.