Some posters on this thread have said how embarrassed and ashamed they are to be British, or to be BA or BAA employees. There’s no need to be ashamed: you didn’t fail – it was middle- and upper-management in both companies who failed. And that’s mainly due to a malady that has been sweeping the world for twenty years or more – the awful, abysmal, MBA.
Too many people have emerged from too many business schools, clutching their diplomas, thinking they knew everything there was to know about managing a business. But stop and think for a moment. Who taught them everything they needed to know? University professors, that’s who. Professors who, themselves, throughout their lives, had only ever been to school. High school, bachelor’s degree, master’s, doctorate – and straight back to school to pass on to the next generation everything they thought they knew. All theory, though, because few, precious few, of them had ever actually managed a business.
So these newly-minted MBAs are then snapped up into management positions, by other MBAs already in place at the big corporations – and the cycle of unknowing incompetence is thus perpetuated.
In many corporations, incompetent management isn’t usually in the public eye, and there are countless ways of concealing all but the greatest of disasters. The airline business, and other industries which directly serve the public, don’t have the luxury of concealment. Their screwups are right there in public view.
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Walsh was quoted in a number of places as saying “The buck stops here.” Absolutely right, Willie. You got it in one. Another quote said “I accept full responsibility.” Well, Willie, do you understand what responsibility is? T5 has been BA’s biggest project during your term in office. It failed. You failed. Your responsibility now is to say goodbye.
Yes, you’re right. It’s not just BA at fault. BAA appear to have screwed up royally, too, and heads need to roll there as well. But BA, as BAA’s customer, should have been driving BAA to perform. Sadly, obviously, they didn’t drive hard enough.
And right now, despite all the hype and the technological achievements relative to the building envelope itself, the important parts of T5 appear to be as big a pile of crap as ever sat in the sewage farm which previously occupied the site.