easyJet - a great team with poor leadership
Caudillo is spot on in his comments about the base team at EMA - they have done all that can be expected of them, something that cannot be said for the uninspiring management at easyJet.
My view of easyJet is mainly as a passenger as well as a retired senior director in business (I also have a flightdeck connection via my son who is an SFO with ezy). With regard to EMA, no management group I have ever worked with would regard the airlines efforts at East Midlands as a job well done. Since taking over GO they have neither gone forward nor backward - in fact they appear to have trodden water. In my experience you cannot run a successful business by standing still (for years in this case). In the meantime, as we know, lots of competitors have developed and grown their EMA offerings as one would expect of any well run business.
As a result of this spineless approach to business the based crews (brilliant in my experience as a regular passenger) have been severely let down.
It seems to me that easyJet is indeed scared of competition. MOL and his merry men have seen EZY off at EMA (I expect they'll paint it on the side of a 737 - 'Goodbye from EMA easyJet'), and they are giving them a run for their money at LPL, BRS and many other places. They also win the publicity war hands down.
EasyJet is a low profile airline, with a seemingly incompetent management at the highest level - think about the fuel hedging disaster in 2009, the crass high level decisions to try and save a few quid by charging flight crew for drinks etc. You may not agree with me, but from everything I've read on this forum (and everything my son whispers in my ears) I think the management of easyJet not worthy of the staff.