marlowe

Is he actually leaving BA or is he being withdrawn from the frontline of T5 and sent sideways?

AtoBsafely

Maybe he just went downstairs looking for his bags.....

HZ123

Please be assured that both will be leaving with a tidy sum in the bin. I very much doubt that it will cause them to lose too much sleep. I feel sure all pruners will join me in wishing them every success with their next airline.

3Greens

i hope that last post was tongue in cheek; this ppruner certainly does not wish those two tossers every future success these two are largely responsible for the complete balls up of the last couple of weeks. As far as i'm concerned they aren't fit to sweep the streets.

Southernboy

Not just that balls up either. The surprise is GK lasted as long as he did. says something about the way BA's been run over th the last few years.

evenflow

3Greens - you offend street sweepers everywhere

Ancient Observer

Looking at all the posts on the various BA sites, it would seem to me that BA managers and staff deserve each other.
They do not deserve paying passengers/customers, so will go the way of the dodo......like GEC/Marconi.

Terminal 5

One reason that they could have gone is that they knew about the T5 problems before it opened and failed to pass it upwards, or that they didn't know as it had been kept quiet from those below, but they are the public hangings.

I guess there will be more axe swinging to come as all those directly below now report in to the CEO!

A lot of BA's problems also come from the bottom, the immense powers of the unions are testimony to that. BA needs a top to bottom clean out.

To the unions, and managers, evolve or die, or there will be no BA as we know it, you have seen what the CEO will do and I don't think he, if he lasts, or his successor, will have any hesitation in swinging the axe again!!!

And to clarify by criticising the Unions here I am not having a go at the frontline staff, it is some of the 'reps' who claim to represent you, some who haven't done a days work in years while raking in stupid amounts of money for the job they should be doing!

BA needs a massive culture change from both sides, staff and management.

RAT 5

What you should be really worried about is having a CEO who thinks that the same peson can be in charge, organise, and be responsible for Ground Operations AND Flight operations. That is a disaster waiting to happen. They are different worlds and need different skills & knowledge. Every airline I've worked for who has put a Ground person in charge of Air Ops has been an unmitagted complete total catasrophe. That's the trouble when most Airlines (airborne services) employ ground people to be CEO's and expect them to understand how it is done. You don't employ a physio to be a football manager. I agree that not all footbalers make good managers, but find me a good manager who was not a footballer at some level.
OK, not all pilots make good CEO's, perhaps because they haven't had the complete bean counters' education, but in the back ground, and as chief advisor there should someone who knows about aeroplanes and what they need to make them tick. That, and the crews, engineers, ops staff etc and what makes them tick. Then you have a chance. Bean counters are interestd in short-term profit and share price. No long-term thinking. No experience.
Where's the Alex Ferguson of airline management? Success and longevity, plus a no B.S. attitude.

747-436

To clarify the Director Of Flight Operations is in charge of flight Ops, WW is now in charge of the department that looks after the cabin crew, not the pilots and the associated bits of running Flt Ops.

Capvermell

The main question is how much have they been paid to go without a fight and to not talk to the press by slagging off Willy Walsh and the rest of the Board (although we know Kirkwood hates talking to the press).

Given how long Kirkwood has been at BA and subsidiaries (basically all his career) he would obviously go to an Employment Tribunal unless he was being offered a huge payoff or other guarantees. If they are being asked to take the blame and go without a fuss if I were them I would want at least three years salary and my pension contribution paid for the same period.

If they went to an Employment Tribunal I am sure they could prove that the malaise leading to the T5 problems extended much wider and went as far as the CEO and the Chairman themselves. They would point to huge corporate pressures from the two top men (CEO and Chairman) to say the Terminal would open on time no matter what and their, in effect, having no option but to go along with this and make the best of it.

They must have already been offered a cosy well paid transfer to somewhere else in the airline industry or massive payoffs not to fight this all the way. Especially when Walsh had previously said the buck stopped with him. Can you imagine the chairman of an Employment Tribunal questioning Walsh on that buck stops here point. The media would have an absolute field day.

By the way they obviously have not fallen on their swords. They are merely accepting an apparent public beheading in return for some kind of secret deal to protect their future if they agree not to go to a Tribunal hearing.

VAFFPAX

Capvermell, that is usually the case yes.

"Leave quietly and without a fuss, and we'll chuck enough money your way that you're well off until you find some other company to pay your way" sounds all too familiar.

Please VA/BMI boys and girls... let us know when he arrives in your offices as the new something or other, so that we can at least send our condolences.



S.

DozyWannabe

To be fair, if what I've been reading is right, this isn't an issue that is restricted to BA, or even British businesses - in fact it's a phenomenon that started in the States.

Relying on theoretical training in business is fine to actually pass the MBA, but the assumption on the part of a subset of management is that it does away with the need for practical experience, which is a load of ****e. Working in isolation using charts and figures is one thing, but by reducing the people your workforce to resources that can do measurable units of work means you miss out on a very important layer of detail - so you could be merging two groups of people who have an animosity to one another, but you won't know about it, and expect them to work together flawlessly when you take them out of their comfort zone.

Another symptom of this management style is that you'll do whatever it takes to present a rose-tinted picture to those above you, rather than being honest about any problems you may be having - this just stores up problems that end up exploding at the time you really should be doing nothing more than dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's at the end of the project.

There needs to be a culture of honesty at every level, from the shop floor through management right up to the senior and executive level and this means there also needs to be a non-punitive attitude from the top down, at least at the beginning of a project. If you tell the people working for you that heads will roll if there's the slightest bit of bad news early on, then they're not going to be honest with you when they and their staff are struggling and you're going to sail on in blissful ignorance until you're left with a huge steaming pile exposed to the world, wondering what the hell happened.

Fundamentally the culture among executives in the West is completely backwards. At the very top, even if you screw up completely, you'll be sent on your way with a lucrative golden parachute. OK, your reputation will be in tatters, but the money means that you'll be able to cushion that and still live extremely comfortably with some canny investments (and you'll be able to afford the accountant to do that for you). This is where Asian businesses have it right. If an executive fails, there are negative repercussions for them as well as for the company and shareholders.

I'm reminded of the story of the groundie who messed up and nearly killed a very skilled and famous pilot. The following day, not only did the pilot tell the foreman not to fire the groundie, but he personally requested him to work on his aircraft the next time out, because after making such a huge mistake, he'd work much more carefully in future. If it were up to me a failing executive would have their bonus for that year nullified and their pay reduced, then have them put them in charge of cleaning up the mess they made, along with someone competent to co-operate with them and point out where they went wrong. If they refuse this, then off they go, with no incentive.

Of course in today's climate where a CEO will refuse to sign on unless they have ****-up insurance in the form of a golden parachute such a thing would be impossible, but it's nice to dream.

Nigel_the_Normal

Come on "900".

What have you got to say then? Let's have your management bullsh1t about this.

Unless you are Noise or Deadwood of course.....

saintjoseph

Bean counters are interestd in short-term profit and share price. No long-term thinking. No experience... to quote RAT5


just commenting on your quote. short term profit at what price? share price predicted to hit 170 on the LSE site this afternoon. no one's winning here. what does it take for the board to smell the coffee? are they even aware that they're about to be hit by a double whammy from both balpa and then cabin crew? what the hell is going on in this company? has anybody got their finger on the pulse? only a total overhaul will repair the damage done. and yes, that includes unions as well. i think it's possible jim, but not as we know it!

PAXboy

My congratulations to WW. He has saved his job for now. By doing the standard 'Axe a couple of them and take personal control', he has bought himself six months. He might still lose but not by as much.

The Board do not want to see him go - whatever they might think of him - because the instability in front of the shareholders would be very bad. If they drop him earlier than planned, they will all get away with it. So, Well Done Willie.

Sunfish

There is an old joke about the life cycle of projects. They go through six stages:

Enthusiasm

Disillusionment

Panic

A Search for the Guilty

The Punishment of the Innocent

Praise and Honour for the Non-Participants.

I think various bits of each stage get mixed up. We have seen a bit of all of these. But there is much more to come. A few observations below:

Firstly, I think the two that have left are sacrificial lambs. I don't know them, I don't work for BA. I saw a picture of Mr. Kirkwood on Pprune, and my immediate thought was "this guy is way too young to have the life experiences (especially of failure) necessary to do that job". I've still got the scars from learning what "sending a boy to do a man's job" actually means.


T5:

As for either of these people telling (warning) their boss that there were problems that needed to be attended to, that is impossible. All I can say is that if you try and tell a narcissist that their plans are flawed you will earn their undying hatred and be sacked as soon as it is convenient - I've seen it happen. I would also expect that Mr. Walsh sends out very strong signals about what he wants to hear and doesn't want to hear. That of course assumes that the Gentlemen concerned had the experience necessary to know that there were problems.

Direct reporting to Mr. Walsh

That tells me three things.

1. The managers were fired, not for bad planning, etc., but because they couldn't make T5 work as advertised right now.

2. Mr. Walsh has yet to panic. He does not yet know enough to panic.

3. I fail to understand how direct reporting to Mr. Walsh is going to do much to solve the problem. I expect that the poor schmucks who are the deputy managers will spend half their day writing daily progress reports and the other half on Mr. Walsh's carpet being berated.

Appointment of a Chief Operations Officer

Mr. Walsh will no doubt think that this is a blessing, since in theory it insulates him from any operational responsibility and of course, the T5 fiasco.

If I was Mr. Walsh, I would be rather worried, since my guess is that the COO is going to replace Mr. Walsh as CEO, perhaps rather quickly, once they have their feet under the table and can demonstrate performance and impress the Board by doing something about T5.

If Mr. Walsh is very lucky this might happen by giving him a seat on the Board, but I doubt it.

As for the COO him(her)self, that appointment is going to be one that is often advertised under the byline "Make your Mark" and the blurb describes the job as "challenging". The phrase "cleaning the Augean stables" comes to mind. I don't think I'll apply.


However, we are not yet at the stage of "full blown panic" over T5. Mr. Walsh does not yet realise that the problems of T5 are likely systemic, at which time new consultants will be employed. It is only when their report is received and the scale of the mess becomes clear, that the Board will panic and Mr. Walsh will leave.

Praise and Honour for the Non-Participants.

When it becomes clear that the T5 debacle has the ability to negatively affect the Olympics, I suspect that a certain Chairman will receive a peerage and depart for greener fields, to be replaced by someone to preside over a "business transformation program" (with lots of money for the consultants) to clean up the mess. Yes, BA is a private company, but it's not that "Private" if you know what I mean.

Dozywannabe:

I share all your Pollyanna-ish sentiments expressed in your post except this one. Yes management should be leading by example from the top down and truth and honesty should be the coin of your corporate culture.

However.....Let me say that nobody is going to take on the thankless task of running and fixing BA without a golden parachute and spectacular annual emoluments for a number of reasons.

(a) The job is 24/7. You are investing all your energy in such a project. People who can successfully do this stuff do not grow on trees, nor can any "wannabe" walk off the street and do it.

(b) Success is not certain, even if you are highly competent and make zero mistakes. At some point, whether you succeed or fail, the Board will tell you to leave. You face public humiliation if you fail.

(c) If I work my @rse off, as a result making billions of dollars for the shareholders, then I expect some of it to attach itself to my sticky fingers. It's only fair.

(d) If you want me to work my @rse off, then it's better that I'm not worrying about my mortgage or school fees isn't it? (Same applies to pilots)

windytoo

Gordon Brown has said that he "will have to take some difficult and unpopular decisions to try and ease the problems with the UK's economy". I guess he is going to be employing Mr. Kirkwood in the near future then. They should work well together!!

Capvermell

Got to be a buying opportunity here as although this is a mess I suspect it will be turned round in the end and T5 will be running smoothly by some point in 2009. Don't forget that when this does happen connecting through T5 for BA's regional passengers and passengers originating in Europe and changing to long haul at Heathrow becomes a much smoother and easier experience than T1 to T4 transfer was.

What price to buy at - 150 or 130 or could they go as low as nearly 100p per share? Remember how fast the share price recovered in the end after the 9/11 crisis. The oil price is going to continue to rise but may be the worst is over for now.

Sunfish

Cappy, I think you are right, at some point BA is going to be a buying opportunity, but the difficult point is determining when.

Are the problems of T5 systemic or transitional? What is going to be the effect of oil prices?

"Buy in gloom and sell in boom."