rebellion

You get better service with Ryanair.

I never thought I'd say that.

TartinTon

Perhaps it's not just the w*****s drinking cappuccinos at Waterside but also the 1960's work practices and petty T4 vs T1 arguments that go on amongst the airside living organ donors? BA needs to sort out the whole operation and stop being dictated to by the moronic union reps who still think old shredded wheat head Scargill was JC reincarnated.

saintjoseph

capvermell/sunfish
seem to recall post 9/11 low point shares hit the 90's. takes a year or so to really turn round an oil tanker! especially keeping the same skipper on board. with mega mergers, klm, delta etc, are ba really ready to step up to the plate. it looks like chelsea at the moment. front line/players stumbling along while the backroom boys haven't got a clue. and yes united (mufc) deserve team/airline of the year!!!

Sunfish

ReHeat, speaking of the Chairman of BA:

ReHeat, the Chairman has the final say in who the Directors are, and perhaps more importantly, who the CEO is, and they will hire people who "mirror' their own values and behaviours.

To put it another way, someone who is quite happy Chairing a Company selling a toxic addictive product that kills millions of people each year is going to hire a Board and a CEO that mirrors exactly these same values and behaviours.

That is why you have got WW You wouldn't have him if the Chairman didn't get on with him, and WW wouldn't have accepted the job unless he was happy working for someone with that background. It's as simple as that.

Would you work for the Tobacco industry or for someone strongly associated with that industry? Sorry, I won't, because at some point the nasty rotten personal qualities possessed by someone associated with selling that product are going to show through.

To put it another way, the Chairman ain't no saint, and if you work for him, then you are no saint either, and so on and so on..

The trouble Reheat is that the attitude of the Board and CEO then cascades down the management of the business because managers hire and promote people who mirror their values and behaviour. The arrogance starts at the top, and by all accounts now has cascaded down to all the lower levels of BA management.

Lord Bracken

Capvermell two points. First, the Guardian reckon that Kirkwood and Noyes have gone straight on gardening leave which would indicate that terms and conditions of their departure have yet to be finalised. If so, the resulting "discussions" could be an interesting management diversion in the months ahead.

Second, I flew back from Lisbon on BA a couple of days ago and we were an hour late leaving Lisbon due to "late arrival of the aircraft incoming into Heathrow from Madrid and also heavy rain at Heathrow."

Since March 27, all BA's 757 fleet are now running the LIS, BCN, MAD, NCE and HEL services out of Terminal 1.

Now, how can you tell me that in 2009 T5 will be perfect, when at the moment BA can't even run a single-fleet operation to five destinations out of one half-empty terminal with any degree of robustness in the schedule? Hint: the answer begins with H and ends in W....

Regards, Bracken.

Capvermell

The T5 problems are transitional I would say, largely caused by opening the Terminal before it was finished or properly tested. The bag store part of the baggage system does sound like a bit of a vastly over ambitious technological black hole that may be wildly unrealistic for the amount of baggage it has to store. One computer glitch and it all goes pair shaped with no apparent manual fallback position. Somebody also needs to challenge the complete obsession with security that makes manual fallback arrangements such as passengers moving their own bags to and from the gates as a last resort prohibited.

This seems to be a failing though of modern airport terminals that are too big and spread out for their own good. At ludicrously sprawling single terminal Palma (Majorca) airport if the computerised baggage season goes U/S in peak season then all check in also has to stop because the distance to the gates (up to 1km) is so ridiculously large that passengers are not thought to be able to cope (also the security scanning arrangements designed for hand luggage probably could not cope). In high season in July and August Palma can be significantly busier in terms of passenger numbers than Gatwick. The total annual passenger throughput of single terminal Palma (two old terminals tacked together by a monstrous new central building now handling all checkin and baggage reclaim and with numerous additional highly remote gates involving very long walks added) is about the same as the projected final capacity of T5. Terminals this big with a single baggage system mean disaster on a much bigger scale when things go wrong. The only reason Palma does not regularly implode is because almost no one changes flights so the consequences of bagage system failure are less disastrous and vast amounts of baggage are not kicking around in the system waiting to move from one flight to the other.

Not so sure about the oil price outlook. However BA is not based on a fast passenger growth model like Ryanair or Easyjet and the world as a whole is getting richer so they ought to be able to sustain current passenger numbers barring a total global economic meltdown. If air travel becomes vastly more expensive in real terms due to oil pice then those who can still afford to travel at all may prefer a quality operator like BA. Ryanair and Easyjet have far more to fear from plans to curb growth in total passenger numbers and airport capacity by western governments for environmental and global warming agenda type reasons. If passenger growth stops and their ticket prices double or treble due to higher oil costs then their business models (with huge commitments to new aircraft deliveries) may implode.

AC-DC

Don't know what they talk about.
I am a PPL and when my destination is more than 7h flight (@160KTS true)I fly as a '.Self Loading Cargo'. I stoped using BA 5-6 years as I don't like to be treated as a 'Loaded Cargo'. No one can harm BA reputation, it is non existent.

marlowe

I would imagine that Willy would not want these guys outside peeing into the tent so i reckon that Cityflyer and/or the openskies operation might be seeing some new faces. Then theoretically they have been sacked by BA but are still controllable by them.

vanHorck

It s time to close this thread.... nothing new under the sun, except the new thread about Kirkwood.

We re in the next phase now. It s an illusion to think that ranting here will get WW out. This is now in the hands of the shareholders

118.70

I see in the Telegraph that Noyes "supervised staff training". Is this true ? Was there any ?

Directors share dealing reports show that Broughton and Walsh bought shares around 460p in May 2007. What price can be expected in May 2008 ?

I found "Lessons learned from Terminal 5"

http://www.smeweb.com/management/fea...erminal-5.html

interesting and wondered how many really applied.

I happened on a remaindered copy of "Go" by Barbara Cassani last week and was impressed by the story. Key for me was Jane Willacy with proper project planning and an understanding of task dependencies ; a deliberate ploy of getting a team of different people who could complement each other in skills and personalities (not perhaps the clones who have the same psychometric profiles someone mentioned) ; a regular open review of the Opprtunities and Risk list with encouragement to raise worries and report successes..................

Magplug

Shoey.... Perhaps you should ask the BA Press Office what the terms of departure of these two morons will amount to ?

I'll wager it will be a handsome reward for f***ing up the opening of T5 and making a laughing stock of UK & BA all the way around the world.

Capvermell

Yes Go was a wonderful success story of good management and good quality customer service just like GB Airways but unfortunately in each case they have been swallowed up by the more muscular corporate forces of Easyjet and faced with the inevitable the management of each company decided it was time to ride off in to the sunset with their piles of lovely lucre rather than settle for rather less financially and preserve the high quality product they had created (by selling to a higher quality operator who could not offer them quite as high a price). Unfortunately in business these days size and financial brawn seem to be far more important than offering top quality customer service and a top class product.

BEagle

Perhaps Kirkwood and Noyes are leaving ba so that they can turn their undoubted skills to running 'Open Skies'?

OK, OK - I'll get my coat......

Capvermell

OK but that means you mainly avoid BA for long haul where there are better choices available on many routes.

If we are talking short haul then due to your PPL I take it you never travel with Easyjet or Ryanair. If you had ever done so then you would have learned what travelling cattle class by air is really like. The charter operators actually pack you in tighter than EZY or FR do but in most cases their staff act with both professionalism and reasonable courtesy.

It is hard to known which of these two "low cost" carriers is worse. Ryanair is undoubtedly worse on the ground where they treat with arrant contempt and total inhumanity any inmate who doesn't follow the prison camp rules to the precise and frequently unreasonable letter (and in many cases they don't stick to those rules either but pretend they have and you the passenger are at fault). On the other hand Easyjet is significantly worse than Ryanair in the air with their kiss me quick ex Dan Air cabin crew approach where no attempt whatsoever is made to show any culture of professionalism or respect for the passenger - catering choices are also worse than Ryanair. Unless they have changed (after various bad experiences I finally vowed never to travel with them under any circumstances) Easyjet is significantly better than Ryanair on the ground as they will at least transfer passengers who show up a few minutes late to the next available flight free of charge (unlike Ryanair who will always charge you a rebooking fee and show total inhumanity about your already totally ruined day) although like Ryanair they still inflexibly and unreasonably always refuse to board passengers who are late for check-in, even when the flight is running 45 minutes or an hour late and your day is already ruined.

BA may not be Singapore Airlines, or even Virgin, but shorthaul it is most definitely luxury class compared to Lousyjet and LyingAir

raveng

Well said TartinTom, T1 vs T4 staff and the atiquated work practices there need to be sorted. As for other posts, alot of these Waterside coffee drinkers have volunteered - YES that's right vounteered to help our customers and try to take a bit of the strain from our colleagues at the coalface -NO OVERTIME. These Waterside coffee drinkers, so easily dismissed by numerous mosts on various threads, haven't always worked behind the scenes. Alot of us have worked in the terminals in previous roles at BA. The them and us bithing doesn't help!!

slip and turn

Capvermell, I think you are living in a make believe era of days gone by.

Five years ago you were right and I said so in BA surveys. Today I would quite seriously be more worried about a flight by BA than a flight by EZY or FR. Because I no longer know who is committed to excellence and who is not. I am no supporter of FR or the way they do things, but they do have an amazing reliability record, an amazingly cheap fare structure, and because they largely use small airports in Europe grateful for their business, the baggage handling (if you bother to use it on top of your gratis 10kg cabin allowance) always seems problem free apart from some mid-winter midnight bunfights coming back into BAA's Stansted on a bad weather day.

FR's cabin crew were wobbly for short periods over the last five years, but the current batch seem quite smart and committed. Not perfect, and you have to wonder about how effective some of the youngsters might be in an emergency when you see them receiving training mid-flight on such things as where the galley light switches are when its dark and they need to find something...yes I'll admit I watched that the other night...

EZY's cabin crew today are as almost as good as BA's five years ago. They are smart, authoritative and I believe I would trust them to command me on an emergency evacuation.

The problem with BA today is that it is has these past few weeks been skirting meltdown, worse than any of the other times we remember on WW's watch. Earlier I asked who is Operations Director now? Is this currently a properly regulated airline? WW himself seems to have assumed responsibility for all operations?? How can he do that and the CAA let him?

I see the man on tv and I don't think he can cope with all that he has now taken on, principally because I do not believe he can even get his hands around it. He is winging it and that worries me in an airline.

Capvermell

I have always historically felt Ryanair was worth it despite the erratic service (especially on the ground rather than in the air) because some of the fares were so absurdly cheap. Easyjet never seemed worth it because I only ever book with less than 6 weeks to go and they never have cheap fares that close to departure. Ryanair still have very cheap fares in their regular sale offers as long as you are not below 2 weeks to departure. In January they were even offering cheap fares as long as it was over 1 week to departure. Marrakech for just over £20 each return including taxes as long as you took no hold luggage!

The Easyjet brand is for me totally destroyed by their historically rigid fares structure of never having offers nearer departure and what used to be the total contempt of their cabin crew for anything approaching customer service. Also the fact that no customer service correspondence was ever replied to by Easyjet in Stelios days.

My short haul experiences of BA in recent times have mainly been through Gatwick with the GB franchise operation which used BA colours but was a whole lot better than BA. Sadly this is now subsumed in to Easyjet. I suppose many of the staff have transferred but I bet many of them leave in the longer run due to the "you are just a number" approach to staff at Easyjet compared to the warm family like approach of GB management.

I lost patience with Easyjet when no member of senior management ever responded to a single one of my emails at any time and they also lacked any imagination regarding fare structures for those who travel regulalry on their leisure routes but cannot book 6 or even 3 months ahead. If they have now changed well it is news for me because they destroyed the brand to a point where I would no longer ever travel with them. However that is clearly a very dangerous lesson for BA in the light of recent events.

ICEHOUSES

CAPVERMELL

Not sure how you mean that BA short haul is luxury class..I myself am a regular user of BA short haul at LGW and think the service is terrible compared to EZY, old aircraft, dated interiors, poor customer service and lost baggage issues, recently travelled to TLS and BA lost my bags for 48hrs (I checked in 3 hrs prior) , the aircraft I travelled on had many cabin defects , broken seats and trim etc, and not too clean either, I used EZY 319 on the same route a few weeks later and could not fault them, and will in future..

Tight Accountant

Just wading into the debate to protect my kith and kin. Not quite sure what the bean counters have got to do with the T5 debacle. On the face of it, the failures seem to be the classic mistake of lack of sufficient user testing to identify potential problems. Or in short, poor planning. I doubt the BA accountants would have turned around to Mr.Kirkwood and said "we don't have enough working capital for detailed testing, guv'". Maybe there was a tight budget, I don't know. Sure, the Bean Counters may say the 'economics don't add up' but ultimately it is senior managers or the Board who have the final say. (Admittedly, the Director of Finance will have a lot of sway, depending on how savvy they are).

As for the dip in the BA share price, given the record high in the oil price, $113 a barrel, and the dent in customer confidence T5 has had, I not surprised it's gone south.

BAMANAGER

As I said earlier in this thread, this week would be interesting. These two resignations just the first news in the restoration of this once great airline. I suspect by the weekend we'll be getting some more welcomed news. The call for WW's resignation is reaching fever pitch. How long can he brazen it out?