More worrying news - Mr. Lord to leave
 

There was a letter to staff recently from KW, stating that Andy Lord will be leaving before summer.

From: Keith Williams, Executive Chairman

To: All colleagues


Andy Lord, who has been Director of Operations and a member of the Leadership Team since 2008, will be leaving British Airways in May.

Andy has served British Airways for more than 25 years, since joining the company as an undergraduate engineer in 1989. He has held senior positions across the airline and became Director of Operations shortly after the opening of Terminal 5. He has led the development of our operational and airport customer service performance since then.

His many achievements include management of various crisis events, the successful delivery of major programmes for the company such as the London 2012 Olympics, numerous IT system changes, the operational introduction of the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 and the modernisation of operational technical, safety and industrial processes.

I know you will join me and the rest of the Leadership Team in thanking him for the contribution he has made to British Airways and wish him the very best for the future.

Garry Copeland will be announcing changes to the Combined Operations leadership team in the coming days.


FvDP recently and now Mr. Lord. From a customer focussed perspective this is bad news. Both of them are champions of the customer. What gives?
I had the pleasure of getting to know Mr. Lord on a delivery flight from Everett three years ago (CLICK for Trip Report).

Good luck in your future endeavours sir and thanks for always being available, listening to feed back and suggestions.

I met Andy Lord at a Fortnum event. I was impressed from my discussions and he appeared interested in feedback.

While this is regrettable, as was FvdP's resignation, companies are bigger than individual employees, and I'm sure they will individually further their careers with these moves, and BA will also make way for new talent to provide new approaches to fulfilling their roles.

Change is good.

Improvement is good

Change may or (usually in BAs case) may not be

Embracing a culture of sameness and unchallenged continuity would create a bias towards no change, and that would deliver nothing in the way of improvements.

It's good to shake things up once in a while, and try out some new blood.

Is this not becoming a repeat of Walsh's time at Aer Lingus?

Taking over a struggling airline, heavy cost cutting to effectively create a low cost airline, outsourcing, cutbacks to the frequent flyer program, all finishing up with management discontent and a big fall out.

We've seen every one of those things happen at BA and maybe these recent departures are the final checkbox.

Is this a resignation from FT? :rolleyes:

I think they should make him a peer.

Whatever the rights and wrongs or whether there are personal reasons, I have met Andy Lord on a number of occasions and have always found him fair-minded, both from the customer's viewpoint and that of the staff.

I can assure FT regulars he will be sadly missed within British Airways and Watersplash Down and I wish him well in his future endeavours!

If these two people were demonstrably good for championing the interests of the passenger, and we can see the diktat from on high about the priorities for the company, why are "change" or "new approaches" necessarily going to be good?

Unless you know something that we don't, and you can assure us that their replacements have already been identified and are people who will fight the beancounter mentality just as hard as they did?

But why are they leaving, that's the worry?

I don't think the two are connected - that, I think, could be a red herring.

Frank Van Der Post had only recently joined BA and it is quite likely that some of his ideas were diametrically opposed to the "there's the BA way, and there's the wrong way" camp.

Andy Lord has completed 25 years service so would be fully aware of our deep-rooted culture and well-versed in dealing with everyone. He was well-liked by both staff and customers and I have no reason to suppose that he was in any way out of favour or couldn't get his viewpoint across effectively.

If we are going to hypothesise, then my own belief is that there is a severance package on the table that was just too good to turn down. Quite a few of my old colleagues from my days in the terminals at Gatwick and Heathrow have recently been enticed to "take the money and run!" Maybe Andy is in the same camp!

Good Luck to him! ^

Yes I left my last company at the age of 50 after working 13 years with them. I had become disenchanted with the restructuring that had taken place over recent years but recognised why it had to be done. I hear they've gone from strength to strength since I left. :D

I don't think we should read too much into this.

I didn't mean they were leaving for the same reasons.

To me, it is not a concerning who leaves the company or why or how. The only question I have is whether the people who took over the job will improve 'MY' experience as a BA customer or not.

More worrying is that he's joined Menzies
 

Should have known there was a method in his madness, next you'll see the BA ground staff in a tendering deal with Menzies!