Sean Doyle, CEO of BA, speech to Airlines UK / FlightGlobal - 19 Oct 2020
 

I'm taking the liberty of splitting this out from the succession of Sean Doyle from Álex Cruz as BA's CEO, since this speech stands alone

Here are some bullet points I made from Sean Doyle's speech

- I do not underestimate the challenges ahead of me and the company
- I have spent 20 years working in senior roles in BA and was CEO Aer Lingus
- BA has a crucial role connecting Briitain with the world and vice versa
- We now know this is not a short term issue
- Have forced us to restructure business, makes many staff redundant, sold assets, ended the use of 747s
- Need to work together to save the industry
- I think the risk of flying is low, just 44 cases linked to flights, 1 case per 27 million passengers.
- Safety of passengers and crew is a key priority, HEPA filters and face masks help and we are doing all we can to make flying a safe experience
- "Quarantine" is not the answer and makes flying unviable, UK will get left behind in global connectivity even if quarantine is cut to 7 days
- Answer is to start a reliable and affording testing process, deployed before flying
- New antigen tests are more reliable and rapid, so this represents the way forward, and gives the assurance of safety to our passengers
- In the USA and UK case, the loss of trade alone is predicted to be £45.8 bn
- BA used to fly to 30 destinations, now it's half that and on the NY route now only has 2 flights a day, and they not well filled
- Do not see HMG doing enough, and the time is now, in terms of getting the future of aviation assured.
- Risk we will not see the industry getting to 2050 (the topic of the teleconference) if we don't get through this just this crisis, all other issues have to wait.

This speech is clearly targetted at the next speaker, Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport.

You forgot to mention that he lamented that governments are not talking to the industry.

Anyway, Shapps' intervention has been absolutely tone-deaf and self-aggrandising. Not sure why I was expecting anything different. Key headlines before I disconnected were that the government isn't going for quick antigen testing as it's not sufficiently reliable for new infections (at least he stopped short of mentioning the 7% thing). His task force is looking into either self-isolation prior to travel or testing after 7 days but not as part of the NHS.

I was hoping for some hints of his vision for BA's future but clearly he has taken the opportunity to drive this message home instead, which is understandable.

The event recording is now available on YouTube for those who are interested. Sean Doyle's keynote is at the 1:11:00 mark.

I suspect the only vision at present is to survive. They need a single minded focus on that alone coupled with how they position themselves as we emerge from this - whenever that may be.

I am surprised that aircraft refits etc continue given the need to conserve cash.