FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Willie Walsh interview: People are too sentimental about British Airways (paywall)
Old Dec 13, 2022 | 4:10 am
  #29  
bisonrav
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Originally Posted by 13901
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.
I suspect BA/HAL et al thought they'd be able to hire the same people back for less in the middle of mass unemployment, and amusingly got utterly shafted on that. Cynicism deserves punishment.

I very much agree about O'Leary.
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