Two stories emerged yesterday which again show BA’s cavalier attitude towards its passengers and its inability to spot when it’s time for a quick and genuine apology or an urgent review of the product.
The first story concerned two economy class offloads and was a story that should have dealt with by a junior manager, ideally at the station where it occurred. Instead the two offloads turned out to be relatives of the boss of Ladbrokes, the bookie. His reaction was to direct his £2million account be denied to BA. After the story had bounced around the world and appeared in every important newspaper on its way doing untold damage to BA’s reputation and reinforcing the bad image most people have about BA service Mr Walsh is forced to issue a personal apology. Result, BA retains £2m of business.
Meanwhile, Clive Sturm, a computer programmer who travels Business Class - just the sort of man who adds the profit to BA operations - is so screwed up by BA’s Executive Club that he writes a damning piece on his blog with language so profane that I couldn’t risk offending the sensitive eyes of the Liaison Council (who regular readers will recall took exception to me calling them BA’s "acolytes") by repeating it here.
Instead hardier souls can read the piece for themselves at
http://www.sturmnet.org/blog/archives/2008/05/21/ba-executive-club-ridiculous/
What should trouble us as people whose pensions depend on the commercial success of BA is that managers in BA are either scared stiff or utterly inept and allow either of these stories to exist at all.
If Airport Managers and staff in Executive Clubs can’t take appropriate action to solve these problems at source why are they employed?
Or is it that they’re scared to death of risking illogical and unjustified criticism from the boardroom for taking some initiative?
Either way, it’s no way to run an airline.
Thursday 22 May 2008
Tuesday 20 May 2008
The Poisoned Chalice - what happens next spring?
I wasn’t going to mention this subject here because when it first arose it seemed just a little too parochial - and the Manchester Evening News published my comments anyway. However, today, when the BA share price fell 6% and two leading investment banks, Deutsche Bank and ABN-Amro, recommended investors to sell, the issue became global.
Also, my critics will be pleased to note that although it’s an announcement by Mr Walsh that’s triggered the further reduction in the value of our old company, he’s not entirely to blame. And if any readers should be surprised that there are pensioners who are critical of my views about the BA CEO let me assure you there are; at least one thinks I bear him a personal grudge, and another is partner to a BA Manager - so you can make up your own mind whose view that is.
The issue which knocked more than one twentieth off the value of the airline is the announcement by Mr Walsh that to save money this winter BA is going to reduce services, temporarily retiring some of the older and less economical aircraft. Of course he could save all his operating costs and not fly any aircraft at all, but that would be silly wouldn’t it?
If you said yes, then prepare for a surprise for that’s exactly what BA is doing to the customers who regard Manchester as their gateway to the world. After over 30 years of flying non-stop daily from Manchester to New York, British Airways is withdrawing from the route. The reason - according to the maestro of aviation sales strategy - because the route is "too competitive".
Too competitive? When Mr Walsh was still in primary school I led the marketing team that worked alongside our colleagues in sales and operations to launch the Manchester - New York non-stop daily. And it was tough. Like most national carriers in those days BOAC operated from a national base, Heathrow, just as Air France did from Paris and Alitalia did from Rome. Persuading the planners at BOAC to even consider a non-stop from Manchester was close to revolutionary but we did it.
And what would BOAC have done if the Manchester-USA business had got "competitive"? Our salesmen would’ve have hit the streets, knocking on the doors of customers and their agents, reminding them of our product’s USPs, our marketing team would have hammered the message home with promotions and some advertising, and operations would have made doubly sure our airport service was second to none - all persuading our customers that we deserved their support.
But not in Willie Walsh’s BA. No, now when the going gets tough, BA drops out.
So from next October American, Delta, Continental, United and BMI will have the entire market to themselves.
Actually it’s not Willie Walsh’s fault, but the fault of those who went before him. As the Manchester-based Business Account Manager for Air France reminded me the other day, whereas she and her colleagues in most of the major airlines have full time jobs calling on their main business clients, British Airways has reduced its sales force to - nil. That’s right, zilch, zero, nada. The only tool British Airways has in its sales armoury is to lower the price. That’s it. The Easyjet/Ryanair solution.
So reverting to Mr Walsh’s decision to downsize for the winter, frankly that’s all he can do, but any salesman worth his salt knows that the job waiting for him next spring is really tough. If Walsh thinks that keeping Manchester - New York going was too competitive, wait until he finds out how hard it is to grow a small airline back into the big airline BA is today.
A number of newspapers have already asked the question I posed some while ago - how long will it be before British Airways is accused of misrepresentation - for it is de facto already "Heathrow Airways".
That begs the question, which is the national carrier? For some time after privatisation BA could claim that title with little argument, but today? Well it depends how you define "national carrier". If you mean the airline that earns most revenue in Britain, the answer might even be Emirates for with non-stop flights from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle as well as London to Dubai, Emirates is making a fortune out of travel from UK to the Far East and Australia.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be because the CEO of Emirates, the man who took the company from an ambition to the world-class airline it is today, is the man who was Manager, Midlands and Northern England for BOAC when that airline started the Manchester-New York non-stop service.
Finally, the press have already started the selection process for Mr Walsh’s successor at BA, though it might be harder than they think. One senior and much respected airline supremo said to me recently "the BA job’s a poisoned chalice now, God knows how much worse it’ll be after Walsh has finished running it down".
Poisoned chalice or not, one name that is cropping up is that of James Hogan - the Australian currently leading Etihad Airways, the UAE carrier fast-becoming a second Emirates. Hogan started in ticketing and sales for Ansett and before his Etihad post was head at Gulf Airways. An interesting insight into how different his thoughts are to those of Mr Walsh can be read at
http://www.newarabia.net/James_hogan.htm
An interesting read.
Also, my critics will be pleased to note that although it’s an announcement by Mr Walsh that’s triggered the further reduction in the value of our old company, he’s not entirely to blame. And if any readers should be surprised that there are pensioners who are critical of my views about the BA CEO let me assure you there are; at least one thinks I bear him a personal grudge, and another is partner to a BA Manager - so you can make up your own mind whose view that is.
The issue which knocked more than one twentieth off the value of the airline is the announcement by Mr Walsh that to save money this winter BA is going to reduce services, temporarily retiring some of the older and less economical aircraft. Of course he could save all his operating costs and not fly any aircraft at all, but that would be silly wouldn’t it?
If you said yes, then prepare for a surprise for that’s exactly what BA is doing to the customers who regard Manchester as their gateway to the world. After over 30 years of flying non-stop daily from Manchester to New York, British Airways is withdrawing from the route. The reason - according to the maestro of aviation sales strategy - because the route is "too competitive".
Too competitive? When Mr Walsh was still in primary school I led the marketing team that worked alongside our colleagues in sales and operations to launch the Manchester - New York non-stop daily. And it was tough. Like most national carriers in those days BOAC operated from a national base, Heathrow, just as Air France did from Paris and Alitalia did from Rome. Persuading the planners at BOAC to even consider a non-stop from Manchester was close to revolutionary but we did it.
And what would BOAC have done if the Manchester-USA business had got "competitive"? Our salesmen would’ve have hit the streets, knocking on the doors of customers and their agents, reminding them of our product’s USPs, our marketing team would have hammered the message home with promotions and some advertising, and operations would have made doubly sure our airport service was second to none - all persuading our customers that we deserved their support.
But not in Willie Walsh’s BA. No, now when the going gets tough, BA drops out.
So from next October American, Delta, Continental, United and BMI will have the entire market to themselves.
Actually it’s not Willie Walsh’s fault, but the fault of those who went before him. As the Manchester-based Business Account Manager for Air France reminded me the other day, whereas she and her colleagues in most of the major airlines have full time jobs calling on their main business clients, British Airways has reduced its sales force to - nil. That’s right, zilch, zero, nada. The only tool British Airways has in its sales armoury is to lower the price. That’s it. The Easyjet/Ryanair solution.
So reverting to Mr Walsh’s decision to downsize for the winter, frankly that’s all he can do, but any salesman worth his salt knows that the job waiting for him next spring is really tough. If Walsh thinks that keeping Manchester - New York going was too competitive, wait until he finds out how hard it is to grow a small airline back into the big airline BA is today.
A number of newspapers have already asked the question I posed some while ago - how long will it be before British Airways is accused of misrepresentation - for it is de facto already "Heathrow Airways".
That begs the question, which is the national carrier? For some time after privatisation BA could claim that title with little argument, but today? Well it depends how you define "national carrier". If you mean the airline that earns most revenue in Britain, the answer might even be Emirates for with non-stop flights from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle as well as London to Dubai, Emirates is making a fortune out of travel from UK to the Far East and Australia.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be because the CEO of Emirates, the man who took the company from an ambition to the world-class airline it is today, is the man who was Manager, Midlands and Northern England for BOAC when that airline started the Manchester-New York non-stop service.
Finally, the press have already started the selection process for Mr Walsh’s successor at BA, though it might be harder than they think. One senior and much respected airline supremo said to me recently "the BA job’s a poisoned chalice now, God knows how much worse it’ll be after Walsh has finished running it down".
Poisoned chalice or not, one name that is cropping up is that of James Hogan - the Australian currently leading Etihad Airways, the UAE carrier fast-becoming a second Emirates. Hogan started in ticketing and sales for Ansett and before his Etihad post was head at Gulf Airways. An interesting insight into how different his thoughts are to those of Mr Walsh can be read at
http://www.newarabia.net/James_hogan.htm
An interesting read.
Monday 12 May 2008
The 24-hour rolling news syndrome
Sometimes campaigns like that ABAP’s Staff Travel Working Group is engaged on seem to have lost momentum, to be drifting or be losing direction. It is what can be called the 24 hour rolling news syndrome. In this syndrome a relationship is formed between the ease or speed of communication and the need for news to fill the space created by that speed. Radio 5 in the UK is probably the classic example.
Created effectively on Radio 4 FM during the first Gulf war, the end of that conflict showed the problem in stark reality and were the BBC not publicly funded but had to earn its revenues there is little doubt that Radio 5 would never have existed. In fact, once the conflict was finished most people were content to return to their traditional news sources but the BBC decided that it would extend its taxpayer-funded empire and established a permanent 24-hour, rolling news station on AM, taking over frequencies formerly used by regional radio services. At once it was clear that without a war to report by the minute, news itself was not enough to hold the listener and Radio 5 added sport, and longer interviews. Ten years later the extent to which it has failed in its original brief is evidenced by the continued existence of news services on all the remaining radio channels.
In our case the syndrome manifests itself by creating in the minds of our supporters the idea that absence of news means absence of action or even worse. The truth isn’t like that at all, but is simply that some things take longer to happen than others. In the BBC Radio 5 equivalent, we’ve reached a lull in the conflict; in reality we are waiting for results from our legal advisers.
And in our case this process is made slower still by the proper need to finance our activities separately from the main ABAP financial resources. Whereas a large commercial firm could simply seek a legal opinion and deal with the costs later, we have to establish absolute costs before the event to ensure that we don’t spend what we don’t have.
That in turn is why the campaign to raise funds by individual contributions continues with such importance.
Evidence that we may be having some effect on British Airways management comes from the number of people who took your writer aside at the event reported below and to various degrees conveyed advice or straightforward threats that he should abandon this campaign. Various penalties were suggested. More significantly, none of those issuing the advice/threat was prepared to be named. Frankly, like spoiled ballot papers, such views or threats don’t count. Furthermore I reiterate my invitation to publish on my blog the views of anyone wishing to offer their point of view. Any such views will either be published in full or not published at all and this will only occur if they are deemed by my legal advisor to result in legal liability. Furthermore, the medium through which the blog is published (Blogspot) does not permit amendment of the comments submitted ie they cannot be censored.
The additional news I can publish is that Dayne Markham and your writer were invited to speak recently at a luncheon of former senior BOAC managers and board members - and informally meet with some equivalent former BEA colleagues lunching at the same time in the same place. We summarised the campaign to date and Dayne explained why ABAP’s Committee felt that while the Staff Travel issue clearly falls within the competence and limits of ABAP’s constitution, it was necessary to draw a distinction between ABAP’s ongoing negotiations with BA Pensions and the Working Group’s campaign to even start negotiating with BA over the Staff Travel issue. All our presentations, both formal and informal were warmly received, generally supported in the same way that support has been throughout ie in relation to the extent to which individuals are affected by the proposed changes.
The meetings did produce some specific contacts which the ABAP Working Group will be pursuing urgently and the results of those efforts will be reported here in due course.
Inevitably there is a minority view that all this isn’t worth the candle, that questioning and seeking to change the mind of a powerful and worldwide company is a futile waste of time; some ludicrously continue to suggest that this is driven by individual grudge. The last point is so stupid that comment is almost unnecessary; suffice to say that here and in the blog the writer has consistently said that the issue is not about personalities but about unfairness. They cite our recognition that we may not succeed as a reason not to try. That these same people once led BOAC and BEA through some extraordinarily difficult times both operationally and financially with tenacity and wisdom can only suggest that there may truly be no country for old men, or certainly for old brains. For our part it is enough to reiterate the caution to those opposing our (futile) objectives in British Airways that the adversary who has nothing to lose is a dangerous adversary indeed.
This item is also appearing in the news section of the ABAP website.
Created effectively on Radio 4 FM during the first Gulf war, the end of that conflict showed the problem in stark reality and were the BBC not publicly funded but had to earn its revenues there is little doubt that Radio 5 would never have existed. In fact, once the conflict was finished most people were content to return to their traditional news sources but the BBC decided that it would extend its taxpayer-funded empire and established a permanent 24-hour, rolling news station on AM, taking over frequencies formerly used by regional radio services. At once it was clear that without a war to report by the minute, news itself was not enough to hold the listener and Radio 5 added sport, and longer interviews. Ten years later the extent to which it has failed in its original brief is evidenced by the continued existence of news services on all the remaining radio channels.
In our case the syndrome manifests itself by creating in the minds of our supporters the idea that absence of news means absence of action or even worse. The truth isn’t like that at all, but is simply that some things take longer to happen than others. In the BBC Radio 5 equivalent, we’ve reached a lull in the conflict; in reality we are waiting for results from our legal advisers.
And in our case this process is made slower still by the proper need to finance our activities separately from the main ABAP financial resources. Whereas a large commercial firm could simply seek a legal opinion and deal with the costs later, we have to establish absolute costs before the event to ensure that we don’t spend what we don’t have.
That in turn is why the campaign to raise funds by individual contributions continues with such importance.
Evidence that we may be having some effect on British Airways management comes from the number of people who took your writer aside at the event reported below and to various degrees conveyed advice or straightforward threats that he should abandon this campaign. Various penalties were suggested. More significantly, none of those issuing the advice/threat was prepared to be named. Frankly, like spoiled ballot papers, such views or threats don’t count. Furthermore I reiterate my invitation to publish on my blog the views of anyone wishing to offer their point of view. Any such views will either be published in full or not published at all and this will only occur if they are deemed by my legal advisor to result in legal liability. Furthermore, the medium through which the blog is published (Blogspot) does not permit amendment of the comments submitted ie they cannot be censored.
The additional news I can publish is that Dayne Markham and your writer were invited to speak recently at a luncheon of former senior BOAC managers and board members - and informally meet with some equivalent former BEA colleagues lunching at the same time in the same place. We summarised the campaign to date and Dayne explained why ABAP’s Committee felt that while the Staff Travel issue clearly falls within the competence and limits of ABAP’s constitution, it was necessary to draw a distinction between ABAP’s ongoing negotiations with BA Pensions and the Working Group’s campaign to even start negotiating with BA over the Staff Travel issue. All our presentations, both formal and informal were warmly received, generally supported in the same way that support has been throughout ie in relation to the extent to which individuals are affected by the proposed changes.
The meetings did produce some specific contacts which the ABAP Working Group will be pursuing urgently and the results of those efforts will be reported here in due course.
Inevitably there is a minority view that all this isn’t worth the candle, that questioning and seeking to change the mind of a powerful and worldwide company is a futile waste of time; some ludicrously continue to suggest that this is driven by individual grudge. The last point is so stupid that comment is almost unnecessary; suffice to say that here and in the blog the writer has consistently said that the issue is not about personalities but about unfairness. They cite our recognition that we may not succeed as a reason not to try. That these same people once led BOAC and BEA through some extraordinarily difficult times both operationally and financially with tenacity and wisdom can only suggest that there may truly be no country for old men, or certainly for old brains. For our part it is enough to reiterate the caution to those opposing our (futile) objectives in British Airways that the adversary who has nothing to lose is a dangerous adversary indeed.
This item is also appearing in the news section of the ABAP website.
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