British Airways Managers - inept or scared?

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.