I am fascinated by this thread because I have not seen anyone include what they think would be a reasonable way of dealing with the situation.
I am only a PPL but I do own a business that does about £1m per week of business.
I have seen businesses in the city (London) cut back their I.T. departments to the bone (and beyond) and I wonder what I could do if it looked as if my business was about to be hit.
I process the paperwork, raise invoices, pay the payroll for temporary workers.
In September one of my agencies that provided aircraft technicians to one company had the whole contract stopped (about £100k per week).
Those workers just found themselves out of work and I guess the effects have hit many different industries.
I have been lucky (working around the clock) because I managed to find so many new customers that I did not have to make any cut backs but how could I have dealt with the situation if I had to consider letting some staff go ?
What I want to know is what do you think the airlines should/could have done ?
The facts of life are that the priorities for any business owner or managing director will always be:
1. The survival of the business.
(without that everyone is out of a job)
2. The profitability of the business.
(without that priority 1 will be a real problem soon)
3. All of the other things that you can only do with the money. like customer satisfaction. staff well being etc...
If you were running an airline how would you have dealt with the situation ?