Willie Walsh -> New BA CEO

dearg_doom

Fair play to the guy!

He has some job ahead of him!



link

Our man in Havana

I'm delighted for him. Well Done!

damien

Nice one. Fair play.

Ruu_Old

aer lingus have lost of big time by allowing him to leave.im sure he will turn around BA, best of luck to him.

BuffyBot

BA is already in the middle of a huge re-structure and is making money, so there isn't much of a "turn around" to be done. It will be interesting to see what changes he'll make though.

mike65

Bertie must be a little uncomfortable about this, he dithers about Aer Lingus future and so Walsh becomes top dog at top airline. I wonder if he'll appoint his fellow execs who walked with him from AL to BA.

Mike.

MG

mike65 wrote:

Bertie must be a little uncomfortable about this, he dithers ........
Mike.

Michael O'Leary, is that you??

bbbbb

Maybe Willie will get to buyout aer lingus afterall, weren'y there stories about BA buying out aer lingus in the past, or was that just when the company was losing money hand over fist & the govt wanted rid of it?
(closest I could find)
http://news.airwise.com/stories/2004/07/1090835668.html

BuffyBot

I'd imagine that id the government decide to sell, they'll make the eventual desicion on who gets to buy it - and if the government of today is still in power I'd imagine there would be a snowball's chance in hell they would sell it to a Walsh-controlled BA

mcguiver

Well done,
I hope he kicks ass on the uk to Ireland routes and wipes the floor with Aer lingus!!

dearg_doom

That's exactly what I thought!

Furthermore I think this is of HUGE significance in (Irish) business!

Firstly, it's an Irishman chosen to be the head of Britain's flag-carrier, not to mention one of the top 5 world airlines, this would have been unthinkable 20, even 10, years ago!

And WW is a former pilot, not some college-educated rich kid with an MBA, he IS one of the pilots, and that gave him a lot of credence with the AerLingus staff.

BA's out-going CEO is roundly hated by his staff, just look at the shambolic strikes last summer, WW seems to be very down to earth which should ease these tensions.


I can't remember hearing of a story quite like this before, normally exceptional pilots go into the PR side of promoting an airline, not running it!

BuffyBot

I hope he kicks ass on the uk to Ireland routes and wipes the floor with Aer lingus!!

As they don't really compete on the same routes, I doubt that'll be much of an issue.

that gave him a lot of credence with the AerLingus staff.

You mean the staff that threathend all those strikes because of the cuts he made? I'm not sure he was all that liked by the masses at Aer Lingus.

dearg_doom

BuffyBot wrote:

As they don't really compete on the same routes, I doubt that'll be much of an issue.



You mean the staff that threathend all those strikes because of the cuts he made? I'm not sure he was all that liked by the masses at Aer Lingus.

The point is they didn't actually go on strike, unlike BA staff last summer.

It's going to be interesting to follow this now over the next while!

Bluehair

dearg_doom wrote:

The point is they didn't actually go on strike, unlike BA staff last summer.

Were you following the news during Willies time with EI? Every section of staff went out on strike at least once during 'Iron Hand' Willies reign including what was effectively a lock-out for a few days against his 'fellow' pilots.

Willie is a master of PR and no doubt lead an effective turn-around but he was widely hated by staff including the entire pilot body.

Mind you I think it's hilarious that not only are the Irish running the most profitable airline in the UK(Ryanair) but we're now exporting CEOs to run the UK flag carrier!

BuffyBot

The point is they didn't actually go on strike, unlike BA staff last summer.

Ermm, as Bluehair pointed out, yes they did. A lot.