Sunfish,
thanks for engaging the argument.
Just as you found the arguments I proposed not completely plausible, I am not sure I find all the counterarguments you proposed completely plausible either.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
But what have your costs got to do with EI's or
VB's market share? Nothing.
VB and EI produce a better customer experience than you do.
Older pilots are expensive; younger pilots are cheaper. Younger airlines have less expensive pilots because they haven't been around as long. Pilots may only be part of your costs, but they are (a) threatening to ruin your business model by striking, and (b) still more expensive than at younger airlines. So if you can annoy the older guys into early retirement, you have indeed reduced costs.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
The BA management reaction of cutting costs ensures that your product will become even more inferior to your competitors.
I don't see how reducing costs of pilots by breaking the union is going to lead to a product inferior to competitors. Their pilots seem to be able to fly aircraft just fine also.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
Your comment about all over 45 being unenthusiastic and all under 40 being enthusiastic about being part of a "New BA" is rubbish on at least four levels.
It is an exaggeration, certainly, but I doubt it is rubbish. There are plenty of industries where the phenomena of disgruntled / expensive / inflexible coincide more or less with "older". My day job, academia, is one. The profession of my partner, health care, is another. Indeed, it is very specific in her institution. If you read the letters in Aviation Week regularly, you will find that the entire U.S. aviation engineering community might well be another.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
Secondly, there is a concept called "institutional knowledge", which is the sum total of the experience in your company, much of it contained in the heads of the greybeards.
Yes, of course. But that is an argument why one's more experienced employees might be valuable. It is not an argument why they might be less expensive (they aren't) or less disgruntled (they aren't). It might be an argument why getting them to retire early won't improve your bottom line *in the long run*, but it surely is not an argument why getting them to retire early won't improve your bottom line *for the next couple of years*.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
I will go on to say that the T5 debacle is a classic "Thirty something" type of mistake. The "Fifty somethings" and "Sixty somethings" would have seen this coming in my opinion, and avoided it.
Interesting hypothesis, and of course one which should be realised in the best of all possible worlds. Of course, I would said that since I fit the demographic and try to make part of my living persuading others that our extensive experience will benefit them enormously.
Indeed, if you were to adduce any examples of recently-introduced major airport infrastructure which *hasn't* started with a debacle, it might lend your observation some weight. But I am more inclined not to say the T5 thing was specifically British, or British A, or British AA (although the exact extent and duration of it might be), but to observe that it has happened everywhere in the last twenty years. There appears to be nobody in the world who both knows how to avoid such things and has a track record to prove it.
For example, this is not the first automated baggage system to go haywire. Denver International had a similar experience. It is a big complex computerised system and the experience is that, of such systems which actually do manage to make it to commissioning, over 50% of them subsequently get thrown away as unusable. The others get patched and patched and patched until something workable comes out. That is just the way things are. Nothing special here with who is managing it.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
As for your comments about income levels and age, they are both wrong and offensive.
"Offensive" is not relevant. Please do not mistake an argument I wrote down for my actual views.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
What happens to the "40 somethings" who you now say will work for peanuts. What happens to them in their turn when they reach 45? Are they to be thrown on the scrapheap as well? Is there not a premium on experience in your world?
My shareholders evaluate me on my performance on a time scale less than five years. Maybe I or my successor will have to break the union of those guys as well in five years. Maybe it will be necessary every five years from now until the end of time. Or maybe they'll all get used to their flats in Islington for the duration of their careers and we correspondingly won't have as much to gain by cutting those costs.
Originally Posted by Sunfish
There is an old saying; "Youth and enthusiasm will always be beaten by old age and cunning", which to my mind explains the virtues of having a good mix of both in any organisation. Monocultures of particular age groups are going to make the sort of mistakes common to it's age group.
Well, I might agree with that, but at the same time I might not see how my airline would concretely suffer if I shift the pilot demographic forcibly towards younger and cheaper. After all, my competitors seem to be able to make do with younger and cheaper. Why not me?
Originally Posted by Sunfish
If BA wants to go down the monoculture road, management will have a lovely time......no arguments, no conflict........right up until they hit the brick wall.
That might be your take on the situation, but it is more of a belief than it is a business argument, right?
There is another argument which I didn't adduce so far. Maybe if the key part of my workforce is choosing to engage in public conflict with me, maybe I had just better win that fight, whatever it takes. If my neighbor parks his car across my driveway and tells me I had better do exactly what he wants, then what are my chances of getting what I want by praising his experience and standing in the community? Probably more effective to have my wife call the tow truck at the same time as I praise his experience and standing in the community to his face, around the corner where he can't see his car being towed away until it's too late. And that not only solves my immediate problem but maybe my neighbor on the other side will also get the idea that he shouldn't try that either.
PBL