SP: how would you have run Aer Lingus?
"Walsh changed the "core business" at Aer Lingus and now look at it...unable to compete with RyanAir as a low cost carrier."
I'm curious how you would have competed against Ryanair had you been CEO of Aer Lingus. The options were pretty limited. Remember Aer Lingus was pretty much a short haul operator pre-Ryanair. It earned the bulk of its revenue flying DUB-LHR, with a "normal" economy fare being about £250 return, and business class of £350. I'm not a Ryanair fan, but the airline (and MOL especially) deserves huge credit for reducing the "normal" cost of flying to London now to no more than €50/£40, a high proportion of which is passenger tax and airport "security" charges. 15 years ago Ryanair was messing about with a handful of clapped out planes. It now carries far more passengers than BA, is a much larger customer of Boeing than is BA, will have the second largest fleet globally if and when it implements its latest fleet enlargement, and is profitable (ex-provision against its Aer Lingus ahareholding). It also has a better safety record than BA over those 15 years. In short, it is a fearsome competitor and, bad news for BA, it has signalled its intent to do to long haul travel what it has already done to short haul.
WW's problem at Aer Lingus was that he could not grow the airline (ie aircraft numbers) because the Irish government, then the only shareholder, could not afford to invest in the airline. Nor, however, would it sell the airline. Of course after WW's departure the government did exactly what WW had recommended. They privatised the airline, having already authorised a big increase in the fleet with a consequent increase in routes. Aer Lingus has, and continues to go through, the painful process of restructuring to make it competitive versus LoCos. I suspect the same debate you are currently having on CC T&Cs has happened, and continues to happen, within Aer Lingus. I know they have had several rounds of job cuts, even whilst they were expanding their route network.
Moving to a structure that allows legacy airlines to compete with the LoCos is painful. WW probably has more knowledge and experience of taking on the "daddy" of LoCos than any other airline executive globally.