Flying Quill - an excellent post and one of the few that shows any real grasp of the situation. As I read some of the comments here you could be forgiven for believing that easyJet is a terrible place to work. There are many pilots who really enjoy working here and I am one of them! I have had the benefit of working for several airlines and easyJet is no worse than any of them and better than most. But we digress....
As has been pointed out by a number of people, easyJet no longer enjoys the 'novelty' factor it once did and is now in a hard-rules fight with the big boys. BA are in the fortunate positon of being able to run their short haul operation at a huge loss and paying for it by their profit-making long haul routes. The short haul-only companies have to make profits on that operation alone and therefore have their backs much more against the wall. Despite negative posts here about accountants and so on, I recognise there is a clear need for accountants like Ray Webster to deal with fiscal issues in a professional manner and make sure that ultimately money in exceeds money out. I therefore do not knock him on that basis.
My struggle with him is that he has consistently put his foot in it with City investors. While O'Leary has managed to make the City think that Ryanair is the real deal (despite carrying less passengers and having less aircraft than easyJet) old Ray somehow has made easyJet appear as a financial liability. We have consistently make a profit in the toughest market conditions and yet we have failed to capitalise on that with the right people. For example, when the company announced a load of new routes, the thing that hit the news was a profits warning that turned out to be completely untrue. In the final analysis it will not be RW's lack of charisma or the fact that he never meets any of his crews at different bases etc that has seen him off. It is simply that he has failed to impress the big City investors to the required extent. The next guy (or gal!) in had better be sharp in that department or they will be gone pretty quickly. All very pleasant as it will be to have someone with a nice smile who can press the flesh and introduce the 'feel good factor', the number one requirement is that they do not say stupid things at the wrong time which causes ructions with the share price. They must be able to deal with the City and make financial institutions see that easyJet are here to stay and represent the very best in short haul operations.