Lord King turning the company around, modernising the operations in preparation for privatisation, keeping the staff happy and creating The World's Favourite Airline.
I'd agree with that. The Marshall / King years is pure text book stuff on turning a loss-making state owned dinosaur into a world class company. All mainly done with the staff generally supportive, involving large lay offs but little unrest.
Mmmm "the staff generally supportive" ARE YOU LISTENING WILLIE WALSH"?
Their hugely successful "putting people first" company wide training course was widely copied in the late mid to late 80's. Apparently at the beginning of the program the most popular answer to "what does BA do"? the answer was "to fly planes". At the end it was "our #1 priority is to serve our customers and always put them first" ^
ARE YOU LISTENING WILLIE WALSH?