makin'miles

BA has a strangle-hold on LHR. As long as they maintain this, its money in the bank.

Agree that CEOs aren't employed to be everyone's best friend, but I don't think much of the rank and file saw him as 'tough but fair', but rather quite the jerk. Many CEOs have taken employees through hard times and come out the other side being respected: not the case for this guy, and ultimately that does BA some harm.

orbitmic

That indeed suggests that Mr Branson has a minimum of decency left. There is no reason to think that Mr Walsh would have been similarly sensible had he won. He was, after all, the one to come up with the idea of that thuggish forfeit after all.

BOH

My earlier comments still stand, respect to the guy for showing he has a sense of humour and not taking himself too seriously on occasions. Did you (or anyone) ever seriously think it would have actually happened though? Surely not!

orbitmic

Absolutely, I remember the atmosphere of their open war at the time very well, traded insults included, and I have no doubt that he meant it at the time he suggested it and was not joking in any way (in fairness, nor did he pretend to). Whether people would have been able to make him see sense at the last minute or not had he won is impossible to verify, but this certainly wasn't meant as humour to start with.

hearingdouble

Not to go too off topic, but let’s nip this one in the bud.

IAG owns BA. BA cannot be liberated or stripped out from IAG, in the same way that your house or car can’t be liberated or stripped out from under you, unless you choose to let them go.

I cannot see any strategic rationale from IAG’s perspective to separate BA from the rest of the group (ie by IPO’ing BA as a separate company, either to new investors or on a demerger basis). Realistically, the only world in which IAG agrees to let BA go is if they get a silly money offer from a purchaser. Potential buyers could only really be another airline group (which just won’t happen in the current climate) or private equity - in which case, be very careful what you wish for...

DelTroon

Is it fair to give WW credit for achieving the long term goal of reducing the different cabin crew contracts? Personally I would have said that the success of this was fully due to the coronavirus, nothing else!

Dan72

Well said. I would not be surprised if we start seeing 'even WW was not this bad'.

GeorgieBoy4

Good riddance, Mr Walsh
What a diverse group of comments in this thread.
Walsh's actions show he did not care for staff or pax just the bottom line.
What is with these low cost airline executives now dominating the airline industry?
Walsh is in the same category as that one who is the 'brains' at Ryanair. I use the term loosely. Who would ever think of making passengers pay to use a toilet mid-flight. Walsh did not go that far but I would suggest he could have harboured such thoughts, anyway.
The point I am making is by using these slash and cash in on gullible flyers attitudes, where the CEO cares little about standards just to rake in the profits, that today, BA is a mere skeletal image of what it was. How demoralising for those who work in such an environment. Those that have not been fired (pre-Covid) that is.
When pleasing the shareholders is more important than pleasing the passengers, then you know something is wrong with a corporate culture in such a service intense industry.
This point is so proven when even experienced cabin staff shake their heads in disbelief as to the in-flight cutbacks. Only when the internal and external reactions to cutting down on 'on-board' meal service gets thumbs downed, does the CEO make a u-term.
I am fed up with today's corporate giants using fanciful language to fool us all. But, we the paying customers, see through it all.
Why is it no full service airline executive pulls in experienced talent from the 5* hospitality industry to make service adjustments palatable to both the bottom line and the passengers? After all what we as pax look forward to is an 'expectation' that a full service airline like BA, has not slipped into the low cost model, when it is not low cost!!!
My belief is that Mr. Walsh forgot the most important point: British Airways is the UK's national flag carrier. That fact should reflect its national status. Or was Walsh thinking that the UK is a crap country so the airline should follow suit. Just saying ....

BOH

Surely you did not buy into that? 99% of people saw it for exactly what it was.......free publicity, pure and simple. O'Leary is so well known for coming up with some outlandish, outrageous ideas that never, ever get implemented but when interviewed about it he controls the interview to bang on about low fares / more routes blah, blah. Branson is another master at it too, he uses the opposite and promises some wonderful enhancements BS that never, ever come to fruition. Don't fall for it!

BA isn't the UK's "national flag carrier", they are a privately owned company that like it or not, exist to serve their shareholders as the #1 priority. Now I will agree that BA take this too far because most companies realise that if you please your customers by positive differentiation, you should be improving your margin and hence your bottom line. One area BA fail to realise is if you have a happy, motivated staff this can seriously influence the customer experience too. But they are not a flag carrier, there is no requirement to project any "UK centric" image, in fact I think BA try and do the opposite to show they are a company truly with global reach.

lloydah

Well they may not be the Flag carrier but they certainly live up to the model. Just look at the tail. And the advertising, the whole ambience given through their internet site is one of "Englishness" if I can use that word. Cream tea anyone? I know and understand what you're saying is absolutely correct here but the vision they try to project is as much "UK" as AF is "France".

Kgmm77

Even by the standards of Flyertalk this is simply majestic.

The leader of one of the greatest sustained business performances of the last 50 years across any industry, in a sector with incredibly high barriers to entry that is renowned for failing and failing fast.... and you think he lacks brains?


When is your next comedy gig?

13901

False. From IAG's latest CMD presentation, source: OAG.

jonas123

Some of the views from the armchair CEOs in this thread are amazing! I'd like to see them have a go at running these seriously complex businesses and see where we end up.

Michael O'Leary is a visionary - he turned a tiny airline into probably one of the biggest in the world. OK, his methods may not be to the liking of some, but his actions have benefited all consumers by providing flights to people who couldn't afford to fly before, flights to hundreds of destinations across Europe and beyond, and lowered prices across the whole European shorthaul market. Ultimately it is the consumer who demands that, he just found a way of delivering it.

I would be interested to see the parallel universe where someone took BA in a different direction. I suspect they would have had to have exited Gatwick and focussed on being a much small, niche longhaul airline. People may not like WW's style either, but it is undeniable that he built one of the most respected airline Groups in the world and probably by doing so, created far more sustainable jobs than he 'destroyed'.

alex67500

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing it!

orbitmic

I don't think this suggests that BA does not have a dominant position at LHR. 55% is a very significant position of dominance (in fact well above the level of dominance that most regulatory authorities would accept on almost any market) and in fact this suggests that BA has an even stronger position of dominance at LHR than AF at CDG or IB at MAD. The comparison with US hubs or even LH at FRA is difficult because those are not as attractive as O/D destinations as, say, London or Paris. In other words, ATL would be a much smaller airport had DL not chosen it as a hub and the same as FRA without LH or even AMS without KL. By contrast, LHR or CDG would suffer less because they serve the two most active metropoles in Europe.

* Note: UA at EWR is a bit different, NYC has massive activity as well, but UA is the only airport to focus primarily on EWR whilst most US airlines focus on JFK and/or LGW and most international airlines on JFK.