Evening Silas. Many thanks for your truly insightful statement that Silverjet owe a lot less than BA. Of course it doesn't take a financial genius to realise that a sub-prime, two 757 airline is likely to have a lot less debt than an airline with 250+ aircraft. As for excessive leveraging, well thats the second time in as many days I've read the accusation levelled without any facts to support it. BA remains in the fairly reasonable financial position it was left in by Dr Andrew Sentence, who did such a good job he's now part of the Bank of Englands Monetary Policy Committee. I don't see any headlines relating to the impending bankruptcy of BA and for that there is a reason. I'm sure Silverjet would be glad to be in a similar position.
Pontiouspilot/ROTPS: You do like to bandy the word 'bully' around. I took the liberty of looking up the word bully in the OED:
bully: a person who hurts, persecutes, or intimidates weaker people
Now as I've never actually met you it's rather difficult to claim that you are somehow weaker than I am. That leads to the logical conclusion that if you feel you are being bullied then you must believe you are somehow weaker, and I can only conclude that it must be your arguments that are weaker. These claims of 'bullying' are rather like some of the spurious the claims of 'racism' that pervade society these days. If you are losing the argument on facts then level a claim of bullying or racism and you trump the argument. Fortunately that doesn't apply here.
So, back to addressing the issue. I've no doubt that as a fleet manager you did encounter the desperate types who'd be wiling to work for nothing. I've no doubt BA encounter similar types of people, and I've no doubt that some of the people who have been selected to fly for Open Skies are not too far removed from them. I can even see the managers temptation to employ them; cheap, compliant, malleable individuals who will never answer back, you'd be a fool not to try to hire a workforce such as that. However that is a pathetically simplistic approach, and it speaks volumes of the pathetically simplistic BA management that they believed they could get away with that and nobody would notice. Any decent management team would see beyond simple attempts to save a few £££ and recognise the wider industrial situation. They would recognise that the engine of their profitability is, and will remain, the core business. They would recognise that the core business can provide significant advantages in manpower, flexibility and resources that a faux-stand-alone unit could never achieve. They would recognise that you achieve far more working with your crucial staff than working against them. Instead, they are gambling on a sh1t-or-bust , ego-driven operation launched despite a perfect storm of dire financial circumstances in the hope that a pretend premium product will seize market share from well established local operators who have the time, effort and resources to throw against them. Meanwhile the clowns at Waterworld cross their fingers and hope that they win a court case whilst they try to work out how their 'Biz' seat will actually get through the door of their aircraft and how they are going to fasten it to a floor that Boeing says isn't strong enough to take it's weight. If you think you have a career with this joke of an outfit then good luck to you.