The 'fog of war' is understandable and justifiable, and His Incompetence Grant Shapps played a part, but up to a point. The bulk of BA's slashing happened while furlough was available, and yet both BA and HAL went out with a very aggressive plan of cuts which, in some key instances, were very hard to make sense of. The example of the HAL team up in Glasgow which used to review airside pass applications: it was minuscule in size, wouldn't have made any difference to the bottom line but, by its absence, caused an ENORMOUS impact. Examples of that logic are very abundant in BA too.

Michael O'Leary, whom I personally consider the finest mind in European aviation, did very little of that and banged the drum of a V-shaped recovery from the earliest days of Covid.