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The Olympics, a PR disaster for BA (and others) waiting to happen?

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The Olympics, a PR disaster for BA (and others) waiting to happen?

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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:09 am
  #16  
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Originally Posted by LTN Phobia
If this thread doesn't go in the right direction, this may well be...

... to this thread's time here and off to OMNI it goes, possibly
Given the immense linkage between BA, BAEC and the 5-ring circus … ^

But then I don't give a shot
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:15 am
  #17  
 
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Well I am looking forward to the Olympics. I reckon it will be a huge success and all the silly stories will have turned out to be, well, silly.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:16 am
  #18  
 
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Originally Posted by HIDDY
Usual pre Olympic scaremongering story....you get them all the time.
Well, if we cannot open an airport terminal, what makes you think we can host the Olympics?

Pre T5 we were told all was fine, the doommongers were wrong....
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:20 am
  #19  
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Originally Posted by SaturdayKid
When Britain’s largest insurer starts publishing warnings about the Olympics everyone else should really worry?

/snip/
I have ordered a new Lazyboy recliner (other brands were available), and closer to the date of the Opening Ceremony I shall stock up on sufficient cold drinks to last me until the Olympic flame is extinguished.

What I will not be doing - emergencies excepted, of course - is going any closer to central London than my local railway station.

I suspect that many, many others are adopting similar contingency plans. Nonetheless, I fervently hope and pray that irmster's prognostications will prevail.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:24 am
  #20  
 
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Originally Posted by SaturdayKid
The Olympics will be a disaster for the UK in general and London in particular on so many levels.
Explain.

Apart from the fact that it makes a massive terror target, for every business that makes some short term gain, others will suffer terminal damage.

<snip>

a serious disaster with major fatalities must be more likely. Anyone planning on coming to London for the Olympics should recognise that they putting themselves at serious personal risk.
That's true for every major sporting event for the last several decades. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't have them. Don't stop living your life, or they win.

People will die because of this Olympics and whilst the IOC and LOCOG are doing a good job of covering up how poorly prepared things are now, when people start dying they will not be able to muzzle the media in the way they could in say, China?


I think BA have been really naďve allowing themselves to be so associated with the event as, when the long term implications are realised, any brand that has sponsored the event that caused the bloodshed will be recognised as pariahs.
Can you point to any comparable incidents?

Doubtless many will respond to this post suggesting I am exaggerating
+1. ^

Based on my company’s first-hand experience LOCOG could not even successfully organise a meeting to brief 100 businesses on the impact of the Olympics, it had to be cancelled as they were so badly prepared.
Entirely unrelated to security for the games.

But I am off to New York for the whole of the Olympics as given the current level of lack of preparation I fear it is not if there will be a disaster, but how big it will be.
There are new terror threats in NY almost every day, including a very public one recently. You're in as much danger there as you would be at the Olympics.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:25 am
  #21  
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Oh, fair dos … T5 is modern, and iconic, and designed by a knight. Or a Lord. Or an idiot.

It's cramped, dysfunctional cr@p unless you can find your way to BA Lounge through the shops. And inbound it's congested cr@p. In fact, it's all broadly speaking cr@p.

The Olympics will be better, because they're International cr@p. The multi-cultural opening ceremony, which will be vomit-worthy and involve loads of children preforming ineptly, will soon be forgotten. Then foreign people will win many more medals than the Host Nation … although we may have a small stranglehold on minority sports that nobody else really bothers about.

I feel sorry for Her Majesty, who will undoubtedly be given a script to read saying how absolutely wonderful it all is.
Perhaps she could publicly hang Blair as part of the Opening Ceremony to cheer us up?
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:31 am
  #22  
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Originally Posted by irmster
Well I am looking forward to the Olympics. I reckon it will be a huge success and all the silly stories will have turned out to be, well, silly.
Indeed.

It's the British disease of always wanting turn something they should be proud of into the usual doom and gloom.....I blame the weather.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:36 am
  #23  
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Originally Posted by HIDDY
Indeed.

It's the British disease of always wanting turn something they should be proud of into the usual doom and gloom.....I blame the weather.
It's called accepting the reality of many centuries of history, and cokk-ups.

We English are not negative by nature, but a millennium or so living next door to Scotland and Wales, and indeed France, has disturbed our equilibrium and leads us down darker paths.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:39 am
  #24  
 
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well, my company has placed a ban on travel from a week before the start of the Olympics until a week after the final of the Para- Olympics. We have also had 'contingency' planning tests a few weeks ago for London based staff to ensure we could work from home during that period.

I suspect many other companies will also being doing that where possible.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:39 am
  #25  
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Originally Posted by T8191
We English are not negative by nature, but a millennium or so living next door to Scotland and Wales, and indeed France, has disturbed our equilibrium and leads us down darker paths.
... and then T8191 moved even closer to France!
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:42 am
  #26  
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Originally Posted by LTN Phobia
... and then T8191 moved even closer to France!
We still have numerous Napoleonic and German fortifications. I feel secure
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:42 am
  #27  
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The comment about the internet collapsing gave me the biggest giggle.

I'm heavily involved in that industry and can assure you that insurance companies haven't got a clue about how networks are run (or how to insure them properly for that matter).

Biggest load of garbage propaganda that has ever been posted on FT, though quite well written it seems like the OP only BAified it so it would vaguely fit on this forum.

I'll be able to access OMNI in about 2 weeks, if this is the kind of stuff posted on there, I probably won't bother!

I'm all for free speech and everything, but this is utter garbage!

Ambulance drivers are not going to sit in traffic with a dying person on board if there is a free lane there that they can use and police wont stop them either.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:45 am
  #28  
 
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But surely that is good planning and sensible in a number of ways, not only for cost savings and maintaining productivity?

Either is not indicative of a catastrophe, merely common sense!
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:46 am
  #29  
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Companies have been known to run before the internet. Some companies, I know this is strange, have been known to run before computers.

Anyway, most people will be watching the olympics from their home, not looking for porn.

If all the porn is turned off, would the interent run faster.
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Old Apr 14, 2012, 10:47 am
  #30  
 
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Once the olympics are over, that's when we can evaluate whether's they've been a sucess or not. Anything before is pure guesswork.

For once why can't we be a country that's optimistic and proud
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