Jim French inherited a complete shambles, and has done very well to turn it around in the short time he has had. The company was virtually dead when he took over, in fact I am surprised we survived that period - at one point, we were only hours away from closing the doors. It was Jim French that managed to buy us some time, pretty much through a sheer display of character.
remoak - whilst I can't deny that JF has done a good job at the helm, your misguided belief in the above is exactly what they wanted you to believe at the time, unfortunately though it's a long way from the truth. The Company did need to change (as many others did) in order to be competitive, but if you sincerely believe that the Company was "hours away from closing the doors", then you fell hook, line and sinker for the spin.
The planned changes inevitably meant a great deal of disruption for crews: base closures, wage freezes, extreme roster turbulence etc, and the easiest way to inflict such quality of life reductions on a generally happy workforce was to make them believe that the only alternative was that the airline went bust. Think about it, at the time the airline was charging pax (mainly of the Business variety) £200 - £300 for flights to destinations a little over an hour away from their departure point in a DHC8-200/300, 146 or CRJ. The DHC8 only needed filling by 1/3 of its capacity to start generating profit, (as the BACon guys will testify) but even at those prices the aircraft were full due to the large proportion of Business pax, there's just no way the airline was about to go under! Remember the launch of the BHD-LCY service when there were airline reps on the aircraft actually throwing piles of cash back at the pax and serving champagne?
As to any losses published at the time, one has to remember that the airline, although UK based, was (and still is) parented Offshore, so showing a profit was not best accounting practice. Remember if you will the huge leasing fees charged to the airline for the CRJs - by another part of the Company!!! Good one that!
Saying that JF bought the airline some time is simply misguided, the Walker trust were the ones holding the strings of a very deep purse.
However, as I said before, JF has done a sterling job, just don't get sucked in by the spin, Jersey/Bristish European was never anywhere near to going bust!
