You don't have to be Sir David Attenborough to spot the carnage at British Airways.
Another quarter, another roaring success for British Airways. It may have tested its passengers' faith with 23 strike days. But the Wildlife Trust can spot a winner when it sees one.
By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor
Published: 9:21PM BST 30 Jul 2010
The nation's flag-carrier is, once again, the proud recipient of the Biodiversity Benchmark award. Apparently it's for that staff favourite – the Harmondsworth Moor parkland at its Heathrow head office. But why stop there? Inside BA's Waterside HQ is a corporate ecosystem as fragile and varied as anything you'll find in the FTSE 100 – populated as it is with a crew-cut Irishman (Willie Walsh) at the top of the tree and, lower down, some termites from the wilder fringes of the Unite union, intent on a wrecking job.
You don't have to be Sir David Attenborough to spot the carnage either. The strikes cost BA £150m last quarter, the main reason the airline lurched to its seventh consecutive quarterly loss. No business can carry on like that. Just ask Darwin. Which is why sympathy for Unite's less-evolved wildlife is ebbing away.
Derek Simpson, the Twitter addict who doubles up as a union chief, was at it again on Friday. Ignoring the fact that the dispute is now about when striking crew get back their travel perks – aka 90pc-off flights to the Caribbean – Simpson tried to claim the losses could have been avoided for a £10m compromise. That's the difference, he said, between the savings Unite was prepared to offer and those BA wanted.
Maybe it's all that thinking in 140 characters but even Simpson must know he's talking baloney. His figure was never real. Unite offered temporary cost savings to ride out the recession. Walsh wants root-and-branch reform.
The strike threat remains but you sense that, bit by bit, the 12,000 crew are beginning to work it out for themselves. They may not all like the BA boss – but then kamikaze missions aren't that great either. As Walsh said on Friday, with capital harder to come by, businesses must reward investors with profits and dividends to attract the support they need to grow.
What's more, if the crew past through the mainly self-inflicted turbulence, they might spot they are working for a business finally going somewhere. Friday's numbers showed a surprisingly strong 13.5pc bounce in yields (revenues per seat) as business-class travellers returned – even if that only brings BA back to where it was two years ago. Costs were also lower than expected.
Moreover, BA is not dependent on cyclical recovery. Its £4.5bn all-share merger with Spain's Iberia offers the chance to rip a planned €400m (£330m) costs out of the two airlines – boosting profits. Probably more. On top, there is the strategic tie-up across the Atlantic with American Airlines, which finally has approval. Given BA has pursued that deal for 14 years, you have to think it's worth something. Rather than more trolley-rage, the crew should accept Walsh's latest offer and focus on making BA really fly – so adding a performance bonus to their pay. Who knows? They may even win an award for being less wild.
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