Laker Airways
Adam Thomson's part in the dirty tricks campaign is well known. Fred had almost completed a new financial deal with McDonnell Douglas when they received a telex from Adam Thomson stating that if they helped Fred in any way then BCAL would never ever again buy any of their products.
Sadly for him a Douglas employer, who was sympathetic to the Laker cause, leaked the goodies to the press.
He might have delayed an aircraft for 45 minutes AFTER the event but he sure as hell wasn't very freiendly BEFORE the event.
Do you resent Fred keeping his Roller?
I don't.
Sadly for him a Douglas employer, who was sympathetic to the Laker cause, leaked the goodies to the press.
He might have delayed an aircraft for 45 minutes AFTER the event but he sure as hell wasn't very freiendly BEFORE the event.
Do you resent Fred keeping his Roller?
I don't.
JW411, you really should give the full story of the McD involvement with Laker. The financal deal was that McDonnel Douglas would buy shares in Laker. Now, other customers of McD, SAS, Lufthansa (ie not just BCAL) thought that this was a conflict of interest. When they negotiated with McD prices for new aircraft etc a lot of confidential information is discussed. With McD now planning to be part-owner of a competitor airline they felt that this was a situation they could not work with. It was not just BCAL that indicated they would no longer buy aircraft from McD.
As far as I can recall, Freddie's earlier aviation enterprises included operating out of Bovingdon late '40s/early '50's using Haltons and Hermes on the Berlin Airlift. It may have been his first enterprise come to think of it!
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Hi JW411.
The second encounter I badly described and have since reached the conclusion that it was one of those occasions when 'You had to have been there'.
But to deal specifically with the Rolls. No I don't resent his ownership of it. As regards its role in the event, it was at that moment in time and in that place, unfortunate that it was his conveyance of choice.
My comment about a bad taste in the mouth was perhaps unfair as it appeared to point the finger entirely at Laker the man and Rolls the Car. The entire incident was unpleasant and whilst Laker was the epicentre around which it revolved he and the Car were only part of the problem and no I am not going to go into more detail,
Moving on:
It is often said that people have friends, countries have interests.
The same applies to business and at the time, with corporate survival at stake, even if Laker, Thomson and King had been the very best of friends (which is not easy for me to imagine), then there would have still been 'blood on the carpet' at the end of the day.
DIH
The second encounter I badly described and have since reached the conclusion that it was one of those occasions when 'You had to have been there'.
But to deal specifically with the Rolls. No I don't resent his ownership of it. As regards its role in the event, it was at that moment in time and in that place, unfortunate that it was his conveyance of choice.
My comment about a bad taste in the mouth was perhaps unfair as it appeared to point the finger entirely at Laker the man and Rolls the Car. The entire incident was unpleasant and whilst Laker was the epicentre around which it revolved he and the Car were only part of the problem and no I am not going to go into more detail,
Moving on:
It is often said that people have friends, countries have interests.
The same applies to business and at the time, with corporate survival at stake, even if Laker, Thomson and King had been the very best of friends (which is not easy for me to imagine), then there would have still been 'blood on the carpet' at the end of the day.
DIH
In the business and indeed aviation world today there are still those who overexpand their businesses too rapidly and get caught out. In fact Richard Branson in his autobiography says that Freddie cautioned him on this very point, and Branson has indeed stuck to it. Seems Freddie finally understood the matter.
Laker was brought down by the following :
1. A ludicrous expansion of his fleet in a very short period of time, all those DC-10s then a whole lot of A300s as well.
2. Inadequate understanding of where the worthwhile revenue was going to come from to fill them all 7 days a week 12 months a year.
3. A belief that, while he was free to launch any number of commercial attacks on markets already held by other major operators, that they could/would not do any rebuttal to this or use their substantially greater experience to defend their established territory.
4. Living on borrowed money and being undercapitalised with his own funds to get through what is sometimes euphemistically called bad trading conditions but is more often writing off bad management decisions to experience.
Laker was a great entrepreneur, sure, and built up his airline well in its earlier years, but he just got out of his class.
Laker was brought down by the following :
1. A ludicrous expansion of his fleet in a very short period of time, all those DC-10s then a whole lot of A300s as well.
2. Inadequate understanding of where the worthwhile revenue was going to come from to fill them all 7 days a week 12 months a year.
3. A belief that, while he was free to launch any number of commercial attacks on markets already held by other major operators, that they could/would not do any rebuttal to this or use their substantially greater experience to defend their established territory.
4. Living on borrowed money and being undercapitalised with his own funds to get through what is sometimes euphemistically called bad trading conditions but is more often writing off bad management decisions to experience.
Laker was a great entrepreneur, sure, and built up his airline well in its earlier years, but he just got out of his class.
