Skipness One Echo:
"Willie Walsh". there's a lot of truth in what you say, however there needs to be a realisation that without a large number of analysts, marketeers and professionals, the only thing you'll be flying around the world is fresh air. There's a lot of bright hard working people burning the midnight oil trying to keep BA ahead of the competition. Stop bitching at people because you often don't understand what they do. It takes a varied and large team to run a 24/7 21st century people business.
I don't work for BA, but I've held a quite a wide variety of senior management roles, and started as professional engineer in an airline.
Skippy, sorry mate, you've got it bass ackwards.
I'd like to introduce you to the "reverse pyramid" theory of management and also the concept of time horizons.
For your airline to succeed, it not only has to win new customers,
it has to retain its existing customers. So having bright young things dreaming up new marketing campaigns, complete with operatic themes, is no bloody use if the product you are selling stinks to high heaven and your customers disembark thinking "never again". Arguably this is where BA, and quite a few other airlines are right now.
Now what is this "product"? The answer is that its the complete experience of the airline from the moment you book via phone or internet to the time you leave the terminal at your destination.
Who delivers the product? The answer is it's delivered by the entire organisation - so the jobs of your consultants, backroom staff etc. are safe.
Now I'd like to introduce the concept of time horizons. The people at the coalface, Cabin crew, pilots, operations, engineers, check in staff can instantly, and I mean microseconds, destroy the customers experience of BA permanently. All it takes is a scowl, or a rebuke, or just plain rudeness, or not getting a window seat, or losing bags, a dirty aircraft, or a spilled cup of coffee, a late aircraft, not getting the right meal and so on.
It's the people at the coalface who deliver your product - they are your reputation and they generate your repeat business. The time horizon of the effects on your reputation are minutes and hours.
Now lets look at middle management. You deliver a marketing campaign - six months to build it and another six months to measure its results - time horizon one year. You develop a better training program for cabin crew - time before results are measurable - say two years. You agonise over a new aircraft type - time horizon at least four years before results are seen. You get my drift?
And at the top, senior management should be making decisions that have ten year to fifteen year time horizons.
So what do we do? We "incentivise" managers with annual bonuses and encourage short term thinking by people who should be thinking long term. Then we irritate, abuse, and ignore the people who deliver the product, and who are the most accurate source of day to day information on product delivery. That's not very smart.
Now let me introduce the concept of the inverted pyramid. The CEO is actually at the point of the pyramid, but the pyramid is upside down.
The CEO's job is to make sure that the people in the management roles that report to him can succeed at what they are doing.
And so it goes up the pyramid, your managers job is to make sure that the people that report to him can succeed in their tasks, and so on and so on.
If you are at the coalface, and however hard you try you can't succeed in delivering a quality product, then it is the fault of your management. It is perfectly evident from the postings here about BA management, that they do not embrace this concept, and until they do, your airline is at risk, because how ever hard you market yourselves, you are not going to get repeat business, no matter what loyalty schemes they are now dreaming up.
You got this way for reasons I've posted about on the BA/BALPA lawsuit thread. Nothing will change until the Chairman of the Board is replaced. I mean, why would an institutional investor allow someone with a tobacco industry background anywhere near a people oriented business? That is the crux of the problem because it influences the selection process for the CEO and so on down the management tree.
As for Waterside, sell it, you are going to need the money. Put your administration as close to Heathrow as you can so that your management and back office staff can actually see whats going on first hand.