WW, do the honourable thing and lead from the front by falling on your sword NOW for failing the airline, the airport and the country!

BA needs fresh blood to go through the entire organisation and remove the pompous "we know better than anybody" culture. Also review all expenses, overtime and allowances policies to stop staff profiteering from these draconian agreements!

Ps. WW you dont pick up any goldern handshake either and I hope the other two didnt!

I sincerely hope there are good managers left at BA continuing to do good work, but these sackings of important directors without announcement of who has replaced them are just evidence of a witch hunt not evidence of the operations of a well managed airline. Can an airline remain within the terms of its AOC if it has no nominated or approved Operations Director?

Would someone care to come on here and confirm that BA do still have their eye on the ball, please, and that the CAA are still regulating this sorry excuse of an organisation?

He has been fired so publicly for such heinous incompetence (the immediate cause being showing complete contempt and total disregard for responding in a civilised manner to legitimate questions from the national media never mind his more general tendency towards living in a fantasy land of corporate buzz word speak denial regarding the real state of affairs at T5) that it is hard to see almost any headhunter who would actually be able to find a job for him anywhere.

However I expect someone with his general capacity for constant press on positivity in the face of all the facts might possibly find a job as a sales adviser at a downmarket chain of estate agents!

The only thing that puzzles me though is how the final line manager of these two gentleman at BA has so far avoided paying a similar price and why no one at BAA (who surely were also under a duty to ensure that BA could operate their side of the baggage chain successfully before allowing the terminal to open not to mention checking themselves that the lifts worked and that the terminal was properly signed) has also fallen on their sword, or should I say been beheaded.

And to think Kirkwood applied for the position of Director of Flight Ops at BA. Can you imagine reporting directly to him? CFIT never sounded so good!

I am not BA. So could someone please tell me what Kirkwood was good at, and what he can offer his next employer, if any.
Same question for Willy Was.

Having said that, "total disregard for responding in a civilised manner to journos" is fully in the spirit of PPrune, no?

Re "corporate buzz word speak", I fear Brits are more guilty than most.
Maybe Rod Eddington or Dame Edna could recommend some Aussies ready to cry 'Bollocks' or 'Cut the Crap' every time some half educated idiot pipes up with it.

In the end, it's the listener's job to cut the bull!!!!ter down, or hold shut up. If you don't cry out, the c*nt will continue to climb the greasy pole. Same in politics.

A google search for "Gareth Kirkwood" and "shambolic" or "Gareth Kirkwood" and "incompetent" yields quite a few hits.

So he must be highly qualified in "shambolic incompetence"!

Also several Google hits for "Gareth Kirkwood" and "arrogant" too so he must also be well qualified in that area too. Hang on though as I see that a search for "Willie Walsh" against the same words on Google seems to yield an equally significant number of hits.

Seems that BA Investor Relations are yet to catch up!... http://www.bashares.com/phoenix.zhtm...vBio&ID=157604

This is the bit that got me from the BBC article.

"The company said it would now look to appoint one person to cover both roles. "

So the airline is in a mess, T5 in a mess...so what do they do? Yup they sack 2 Senior Managers and decide one person can do the job. Now maybe I am missing something, but isn't this a time for ensuring you have adequate staff doing the job and not just promoting one yes man into a position where he will be too busy to talk to staff and customers and put right the wrongs? Or maybe that is the ploy, keep him so busy he cannot speak to the staff! Maybe the BALT do now want to hear from the people at the cliff face.

Interesting comments on Kirkwood here, quite different as in the Graudian:

In that Guardian article there is also the following quote from Wee Willie:-

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/15/britishairwaysbusiness.theairlineindustry

Has Wee Willie now changed his mind then?

I notice in todays Daily Mail that the British Insurance Industry is telling people this summer that if they use BA and Terminal 5 its at their own risk, they will not be paying out for lost bags or delays etc as they are only insured for unforeseen problems. People already booked will be covered but for new business - No Way

Let's be clear that the reports on the effects on travel insurance are extremely loosely stated and that the RBS/Directline spokeswoman did the insurance industry no favours with the rubbish statements she was reported to have made.

The cute-minded amongst us might be tempted to call the future loss of a T5 bag a forseeable event, but it isn't - it's a simply an enhanced probability of a size that can be obtained from BA if someone at RBS is bright enough to pick up the phone and launch the right kind of persuasive enquiry. The risk is evidently still insurable by those insurers like Norwich Union who have bravely chosen to absorb the problem, and who have slightly more maturity as market operators than any of the RBS owned johnny-come-lately insurers.

In fact loss of a T5 bag is still insured under existing RBS/Directline etc. policies, too, and will remain so beyond renewal unless RBS/Directline clearly interrogate each of their customers and deny cover, or write it clearly out of their policy wording. If they decline any claims going forward on the basis of this forseeable event nonsense then I think they will very quickly get their collars felt by the Financial Ombudsman.

RBS/Directline are quoted as suggesting that their renewal and new business customers are obliged to declare any intention to use T5 as if it is a material fact. The enhanced risk at T5 isn't a material fact. It is public domain information so it is the insurer's lookout and they must clearly exclude it or not exclude it or ask a specific question and charge extra for it right from start of policy or renewal. RBS/Directline absolutely must not be allowed to bastardise well tested insurance principles for their own dubious marketing ends.

I wonder if slip and turn works in the insurance industry.

Ha! Keep wondering HS

This lady is clearly another unthinking corporate yes person who will shortly be asked to fall on their sword I would suggest. What about passengers who unexpectedly have their flight diverted from Birmingham to T5 or whatever. Are they still not covered even though they could not have foreseen travelling through the Terminal when they effected the policy?

Surely the government itself will be leaning on the insurers over this issue as if RBS and co are allowed to get away with it then it effectively threatens total disaster for BA in particular and also to a lesser extent for the BAA. The appropriate response by insurers here is surely to raise premiums for travel insurance policies that include baggage cover sold to those living at postcodes within a so many mile radius of Heathrow airport.

Dysag - your theory is built upon the massive assumption that the management listen or care when BOLLOCKS is shouted.

Just heard on BBC Gareth Kirkwood is leaving BA. Along with the customer services manager.

That usually only works if you are acting in unison with all your fellow employees and preferably with a union behind you.

Alternatively you can only take such action on your own if you wanted to leave the company anyway and are happy to depart in a final blaze of glory. It also helps to have lined up a job with a new employer first so that any references from your old employer will have been written and taken up before you chose to defy your superiors.

RBS are a big corporate customer of BA. Hope they are going to fry Willie at their next meeting.

Probably looking for a discount on their BACF LCY-EDI shuttle. The banking world is a towering example of competence to us all at the moment too.

Dysag - the passage of time revealed that most of the protestors in Bucharest didn't actually realise they were protesting. They had simply heard others chanting and assumed that it must have been officially approved so they had better chant to or they'd be for the high jump. Now unless you are suggesting all BA staff skip their shifts, assemble chanting outside Waterworld then hunt down and kill the executive management I'm not really sure what relevance the fall of Ceaucescu has. I've personally told the CEO and the Chairman, not to mention more junior managers who have solicited my opinion, of the flaws in the business we see exposed every single day. I'm not the only one. Did it change anything? I'll let you guess.