FFF,
No matter how people want to dress it up, the reason BA paid 75 million for, what was at the time, a successful franchise operation was to stop Branston Pickle getting the LGW slots. It seems daft now, what with everybody cutting capacity, but at the time he would have loved to have bought CFE and got the slots that went along with the purchase. The only way BA could prevent that was to pay way over the odds. The franchise partnership was working very well, so why else would you want to turn it into a wholly owned subsidiary, with the associated costs and burdens?
And, not aimed at you, FFF:
The way people are talking, you'd think that CFE was the be all and end all of airlines. It would have been a VERY interesting exercise if, in the present climate, it was operating as a stand-alone airline, rather than as a BA franchise, which is when it started making 'proper' money. Sure, there were undoubtedly some good managers (if there is such a thing) but even BA has got some of those.I reckon you'd probably be looking at a Gill-type scenario if CFE hadn't done the franchise thing and the Sept 11 stuff had happened. Gift horses and mouths spring to mind.
Tandem Rotor is right. It's a new year and CFE continues to be brought into the BA fold, whether they like it or not. Whether BA admits it's wrong or not doesn't alter the fact that they are not going to U-turn and let CFE go and do its own thing, especially having forked out so much dosh. All CFE personnel are going to have to stop harking on how wonderful the portakabins were and try to help their new employer succeed. And, I have to agree, it will be interesting to see how the numbers suddenly change when the airline formely known as CFE has the longhaul costs imposed on its books, the way the rest of BA shorthaul does. it would be highly cynical of me to suggest that they stop making such a profit very soon, but I'll do it anyway.
Happy New Year to you all.
And.......
Recover