Hi all
Predictions: Yellowpack pilots, who pay for their Types up front and work for peanuts. He didn't manage it in EI but the "special leavers" are redundancies by the back door. He might not get the yellowpacks into Mainline, but he'll do it in the regional/charter companies or sell them off as "non-core business", even if they make a profit.
Staff cuts: As little as 10% or as much as 25%, on a redundo package which is less good than any offered before and which has a limited life-cycle.
fleet review: Slash them. Cut out older Types and standardise on one fleet, all-Airbus with one common Type rating, ie; pilots fly large, medium or small.
He'll be ruthless and will not show his old flight-deck colleagues any favours. He knows all the tricks that unions will try to pull.
any guesses how much he'll be paid?
regards
TDD

Tom Tenor said:
O.B.E. to come later after the mega staff cuts!

How about Sir Willie? I suppose it would have to formalise into Sir William though.

Sounding kind of bitter there "TwoDeadDogs" Willie didnt manage to step on your toes when pulling the Green Machine out of the mess it was in back in 01, did he ? :yuk:

Stick the fleet on the EI register and use the same FTL scheme as MOL. :D

What was it the conservative party said about imigrants......not to mention what Big Ian Pasely will say when he reads the welcome message from Willy on Margaret's favourite airline!

Having sent the Irish out to populate Australia it is great that an Irish man is taking over the reigns from an Australian....at British Airways!!!

Will BA put the red carpet up to the back door when the Queen walks out the front?.........

This will indeed be one to watch!

:ok:

Regards,

DFC

Hope you guys have a good scope agreement.

I think the unions at BA are going to have their hands full with this one.

The writing is on the wall WW v Unions, and understanding British Unions I would have to say WW is not going to get his way very easily.

Remind me - how well was Aer Lingus doing under Mr. Walsh? How well is it doing now?

Rolling thunder, it made an operating profit every month except October 2001 before WW and after him it still makes an operating profit every month. Only now it is an unhappy place with limited profit potential having binned Premier....

Spearing - you are being economical with the truth:

You can be on the Glideslope, at the right speed, but if the rate of descent is 3000 ft/min........

No question some stuff made sense - having 320s and 737s was a duplication and picking one (or the other) will have cut out some costs.

But Willie picked some really dumb fights (like the coffins thing), and the dumping of European freight is something the shareholder (Govt) will have been very unhappy about.

BA Executive Club members should beware WW (I certainly do). One of my family was a regular EI pax just below GC membership when WW slammed the door on it. I may never be a higher level than Blue but there are minor benefits I like and wouldn't mind keeping them.

BA has private ownership and thus Willie will have free reign to make profits but BA is a brand as well as an airline - hopefully his plan isn't something like "let's look like a cheap airline and then we can get rid of BA First".

SB,

The records will show that when WW took the helm at Aer Lingus , it was losing !.3M Euros a day and had about 21 days before it ran out. You may find if you do a search that this was reported in some of the Irish newspapers at the time.

When the patient has a terminal illness, bringing it some grapes will not make things better. Radical surgery is usually required, and in the case of Aer Lingus the surgeon was meticulous, and the patient was well on it's way to recovery.

BA on the other hand is back in profit but still has an enormously high cost base and a lack of focus. I suspect this is where WW will concentrate his efforts.

And being a former Union Official, I suspect he will have no difficulty taking on the unions.

Coming up for thirty years with BA I have yet to meet anyone who seems to be concerned with his arrival. We have been inundated with threats since day one for me. Much of what the thread states on cuts is fairly obvious to all of us, even some within BA. As for sell of BACX (regional) I think some of their guys will tell you they have already been decimated, having changed from a healthy profit to a loss and no direction despite numerous management changes.

Aircraft will no doubt be rationalised, but that said, already in the plan, the only reason for aged 737's and 757's is we cannot afford to replace them at this time. Resale values on both marques is poor, as on our 767's. BA has already outsourced ramp and engineering in the networks and all that remains to further reduce is outsourcing ramp / passengers services at UK regions and LGW (no offence intended).

It is fine to talk of cuts but WW will have to tread very carefully if the T5 new home is to be an immediate sucess and unlike AL he has to answer to BA shareholders who have seen nothing in the last four years. Therefore the last thing they will want to see is futher losses of their share value.

Surely it's the wasters at Water World that should be worried, not the front line staff?

He'd make a more immediate impact if he outsourced ramp services at LHR. In one swoop it would remove massive delays and costs associated with militant loaders and tug drivers and improve punctuality. All he'd need is the balls to tackle the GMB and TGWU, something which even Rod lacked.

Sorry lads but I was there, the 'stories' in the papers were just that. The union brought in an independant financial expert who had unprecedented access to the company accounts and found funds of some 800 million Euro. This same advisor told the pilots at Swiss and Sabena to roll over and beg - they told EI's pilots to fight. Buying aeroplanes with cash is always going to show smaller profits - EI was making money before and after 9/11. FACT.

Anyway, back to the topic - what will he do at BA and why him?

One would hope that latte-quaffing waterworld is in his sights...

The place is full of people protecting each others jobs at the expense of BA customers and frontline resources.

The frontline is already running a core operation with a bare skeleton staff,so he'd be daft to start messing that around again, causing a standstill the likes of last October

There are some very worrying comments made on here about his style, so we hope that any bullyboy tactics are left far behind.

Uummm Charles J. Haughey, anyone? OK, not directly from the state but due to his political work. ;)

Actually, I like the Irish but I know nothing of this man. However, the fact the the City responded by boosting the share price? That tells me that the warnings being issued are probably correct.

I don't think we pilots will be at the top of any hit list. A lot of longhaul people are hitting 900hrs pa and 800+ is not unusual in shorthaul. Since Sept 01 the BA pilot force has shrunk and the company is getting more out of us. It's difficult to see how we could be made to work any harder in the short term given the current constraints and frustrations of LHR. I can think of a few areas affecting pilots which might well be under the microscope but I ain't going to post them here!

No, I think it will be other departments which will feel the wire brush and Dettol first. There are interesting times ahead. One thing is for sure, there is a hell of a lot of value to be unlocked if he can pull it off. Worth taking a punt on some shares, perhaps?

I've had the pleasure of meeting WW when he was at the helm of AL and seriously reckon he is going to follow the low-cost airline recipe to some [probably] large degree, even at BA. It's all about reducing costs, and that is what still needs to be done at BA - why else would they take Willie? If they just wanted BA to continue in its current direction post-Rod, they would have taken Tony Tyler instead, but if sheer reduce-the-costs is required, then WW is your man.

Just another stimulant in reducing the pay and enjoyment of jobs in commercial aviation.

CP

I remember reading on these boards the arrival of Rod at BA. Lots of doom merchants "look what he did at Cathay" etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong but he wasn't the axeman he was made out to be, for pilots anyway.

So all this talk about WW is just hype. A strike is going to cost him a lot of money...