Honesty - the lost virtue at British Airways

On the day following the Liaison Council’s request for my correction (below) I wondered if the gods were conspiring against me for the Manchester Evening News carried two interesting stories.

The first was that British Airways is dropping the Manchester-New York route to save money - presumably to help towards the £16 million they lost at Terminal Five’s first week. Delta evidently makes enough on the route and Continental seems to get by with its Manchester-Newark service. American flies daily to Boston and Chicago, BMI/United serves Chicago too but BA can’t manage a simple Manchester-New York. The MEN editorial echoed my proposition that British Airways should be charged with misrepresentation. The airline can simply not claim the title any longer since it serves only London.

The second story was more telling.

Last year British Airways dropped its entire Regional service, claiming it wasn’t profitable. As a former leader of the marketing team in UK North based in Manchester I could tell them why. Without going the sorry tale of mistakes and missed opportunities it simply shows that if you don’t promote and support your product it will wither and disappear beneath your competitors’ promotions.

BA’s solution last year was to come to an "arrangement" with FlyBe who took over the routes, staff and possibly the planes (I don't recall the details), and instantly became the largest operator at Manchester. The only mention of money was that BA had made a small investment in FlyBe.

Yesterday was evidently considered by British Airways as a good day to bury bad news.

In fact British Airways paid FlyBe £140 million, that’s right, almost ten weeks worth of Terminal fiasco, £140 million to take the routes, staff etc off their hands.

And what did FlyBe do? Did they regenerate the original network of mainly business routes? Not likely. They cherry-picked the remainder of the network, announced a few new services to northern France and trousered the cash. And what of routes like Manchester-Nice or Manchester-Paris - too much trouble fighting EasyJet and Air France; or Manchester-Lyon which, whilst I was busy helping to launch the Manchester New York service in the early 70's, my colleagues in BEA had spent years developing. Abandoned, although Air France almost at once inaugurated a Birmingham-Lyon service - doing well I’m told.

But management incompetence is not news at British Airways. The real question is why did British Airways not tell the truth last year? Were they so ashamed at their actions that they hadn’t got the guts to say so?

Finally, there are still some on the ABAP committee who ask if I’ve some sort of grudge against BA and others who suggest that I should show some respect to Walsh and his cohorts (quite apart from the un-elected Liaison Council). OK, I’ll admit to a grudge - a grudge against dishonest, vindictive and irrational management - but otherwise, don’t be silly. As for respect, that is earned not demanded and I've not seen anything in the actions of British Airways management that qualifies for much except contempt - and certainly not respect.

But perhaps to confirm that I am not a lone voice but echo a consensus of opinion, readers might care to look at the blog of someone who earns his living in leadership coaching. What a huge potential market he has at BA.

http://theleadershipspace.blogspot.com/2008/04/british-scareways.html

(If this address is not complete on one line, please copy and paste the two parts and enter them in your browser manually.)