Willie Walsh is the man
 

This is not a hoax - honest

Well, that's better news than Tony Tyler getting the job!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050308/325/fdx8w.html

Tuesday March 8, 12:33 PM


BA names new chief

LONDON (Reuters) - British Airways has appointed former Aer Lingus boss Willie Walsh as its new chief executive, Europe's second-largest airline says.

BA said in a statement on Tuesday the current CEO Rod Eddington, 55, would retire at the end of September this year.

Walsh, 43, who left the top job at Aer Lingus earlier this year, will start as chief executive designate on May 3.

"Many commentators have rightly said that Rod Eddington will be a hard act to follow, but I am completely confident that in Willie we have captured the very best person for the job," BA Chairman Martin Broughton said.

Sources confirmed on Monday that Eddington planned to return to his native Australia later this year.

Outspoken Eddington has slashed costs and cut 13,000 jobs during his tenure at BA and is credited with ensuring the airline survived a slump in global travel following the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

Walsh had been touted in the media as a potential candidate to succeed Eddington, but the market had not been expecting an appointment to be announced so soon.

BA shares rose 2.2 percent to 282-1/2 pence at 1220 GMT (12:20 p.m. British time).

A P*L*T in charge of BA - when was the last time that happened?

Oh boy - ba.com on the fuselage and blue with a red spot on the tail as colour scheme and resign from the One World alliance !

from RTE's website
 

Walsh named as new British Airways CEO

March 08, 2005 12:36
The former Aer Lingus boss Willie Walsh has been named as the new Chief Executive of British Airways.

BA, Europe's second largest airline, said in a statement that its current chief Rod Eddington, 55, would retire at the end of September this year.

Walsh, 43, who left the top job at Aer Lingus earlier this year, will start as chief executive designate on May 3.


'Many commentators have rightly said that Rod Eddington will be a hard act to follow, but I am completely confident that in Willie we have captured the very best person for the job,' BA Chairman Martin Broughton said.

Sources confirmed yesterday that Eddington planned to return to his native Australia later this year.

Outspoken Eddington has slashed costs and cut 13,000 jobs during his tenure at BA and is credited with ensuring the airline survived a slump in global travel following the September 2001 attacks on the US.

Walsh had been touted in the media as a potential candidate to succeed Eddington, but the market had not been expecting an appointment to be announced so soon.

There had been some speculation that Willie Walsh, along with Aer Lingus' former chief operations officer Seamus Kearney and the airline's finance director Brian Dunne were planning to establish a new airline themselves. The three announced their retirement from the national carrier in November.

The UK's gain and Irelands loss .....

Be Afraid............

Be aware BA staff and especially the untouchables whom Rod didnt take out. WW and his gestapo hench people will knife and dispose of you. Ruthless would be an understatement. He emptied head office in AL and he'll do the same again on a grander scale.

He's not a peoples person and back slapping management lunchs will be culled. This guy is soley cost driven and I can see mega strikes happening in BA as he culls away the fat.

A mega embaressment to the irish inept government. They still havent replaced WW and AL are just an airline in a vacum.

WW wanted to buy out AL. In time he'll achieve his dream as I reckon through BA he'll buy a majority stake hold in AL and AL will eventually become a feeder to BA and its long haul ops.

WW must be chuckling at Bertie Ahern now. Also MO'L I'd say is pleased WW is out of his hair as I reckon of all the CX's out there MO'L was wary of WW.

A massive win for BA.......A dreadful embarrasment for the Irish goverment which high lights their dismal dealings with aviation.

aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!

I for one do not welcome our penny pinching overlords! [ob simpson ref]

That's the end of upgrades to WT+ for me I guess... Skyteam and Star will be delighted.

So are the shareholders going to front up now and ask if BA's brand is going to go down the toilet like EI's? It will also be interesting to know what the Irish Govt's reaction is, since one option for EI's future was BA taking a stake.

O.B.E. to come later after the mega staff cuts!

this'll be fun to watch...

Just wait until Nigel Turner comes out of moratorium-mode and puts rubber to the road at bmi. Cost-cutting? He'll redefine the word.

Bend over, here comes Willie...


...ouch!

I can't see WW being too pre-occupied with wanting to buy a stake in Lingus, at least not in the beginning of his new career. I for one hope he does well in his new position, although i'll bet M O'Leary is keeping a close eye on this :uhoh:

S.C. :ok:

Dear oh dear, the two biggest airlines operating in the UK controlled by Irishmen???

WTF is the world coming to!

What must Lord King and Colin Marshall think.........

Completely agree with Bearcat here; this is a huge embarrassment to the Irish govt which as you say, only highlights their lack of interest in aviation. That said, I think the incoming CEO (interviews being held next week) will be holding out for some pretty cast iron assurances re funding and US access.

One possibility, as a result of Open Skies, is that BA could set up a long haul operation in Ireland ... once the stopover is out of the way.

Isn't it interesting, though, that even though WW is to take over BA, the biggest threat to EI's success on long haul routes is not BA, but the Irish govt; doesn't that just make you very cheesed off. :}

Personally, I hope Bertie's handling of the whole EI issue will come back and hit him in the face; sadly, it looks like it was all just a big gamble which worked; EI was sacrificed to the unions, as part of Bertie's socialist principles and now it looks like he'll walk in next time.

Interesting too, to see that the union's influence extends to the new terminal as well; they're intent on building the new terminal on the site of the old hangars, even though its growth will be restrained by its proximity to the new parallel runway; they are apparently willing to reject the idea of a terminal on McEvaddy's Huntstown land, "because they don't want to see a private individual profiting from a state infrastructural project". This has "union" written all over it. :mad: :yuk: :* :\

Bad news, very bad - he will do some good where certain staff groups are concerned but we will all have to pay...

We'll WW didn't get one pilot job at Aer Lingus although he locked them out for three days.....
Maybe BA pilots should consider IALPA membership over the coming cull ?? :O

Judging by the bio that WW gets anywhere he appears on the net there are some VERY difficult times ahead for BA staff. I don't think there is very much compassion there! I wish all at BA lots of luck because you are going to need it!

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...