Jack D Ripper:
What makes you think VA has a monopoly on ‘MBA types’? Not even close.
Does it surprise you? They are smart, think alike, are commercially savvy, work as a team and can communicate incredibly effectively.
Sadly the reality is that the days of people with deep operational experience running airlines are long gone.
Yes Jack, I have one of the better ones and you flatter me. However it is a total, fatal, fallacy that possession of that qualification means that you can manage anything at all without direct personal coal face experience of the industry concerned. It is utter BS and my career is living proof of that.
In fact the decay of so many institutions and companies around the world is caused by this creeping credentialism. You need coal face
experience or you are just another empty suit parroting empty phrases. I think it’s now “ESG” and “triple bottom line”. When I was anointed the bible was the book “In search of excellence” that talked about such management concepts as “simultaneous loose / tight requirements and similar malarkey . One of the touted examples of excellence was Boeing. Remind me how that worked out.
My reading of what happened is that the CP was asked to screw his own workforce for the benefit of investors and when he wouldn’t he was replaced by someone who would. Narcissists have no problem being ruthless however I would have thought that if pilots are true professionals, then they have a professional code that overrides company financial objectives. Requiring a pilot/manager to act counter to that duty to their profession is impossible.