Blog:Fly Away BA
From Bolton Interweb
Grace Enfavor, Business Editor, 20th March 2010
BA cabin crew have finally gone on strike, and in doing so will inflict immense harm on the company. Passengers left high and dry, whether they were travelling on business, on holiday or honeymoon, or for reunions with loved ones, will not forgive them or return easily. There are only losers in the short term, whether they are the travellers, BA employees, the shareholders, and the creditors. BA could have averted or at least delayed the strike it seems, but chose not to do so. This makes them just as bad as the Unite union leadership.
BA is a basket case in the aviation world, and a business operating a loss-making model that is unsustainable. It can radically reinvent itself or, like Alitalia that only survives in name, and Pan Am and TWA where the name has gone as well, it will explode and die. But is this a bad thing? Like the forest fire that clears undergrowth and dead wood, clearing the way for new growth, so a recession clears dead wood companies like BA, clearing the way for new and vibrant businesses to fill the gap with a profitable model. The loss of BA would have some regrettable human impact but in the long-term, like Woolworths, the loss is more sentimental than destructive. New businesses reside in many of the old Woolworth stores, and new airlines will pick up BA routes and passengers, and those members of the BA workforce who can demonstrate an ability to move with the times.
Don't mourn the death of BA, look forward to the opportunities afforded by the gap it leaves. It is not too late though, the unions and management can still stop playing silly and destructive games, sit down and work out how to transform the company into a profitable and attractive airline. I fear, though, that the extent of the change needed is too much for the unions to contemplate, and BA management seems too bloody-minded and intent on destroying the union to see straight. What I see is a load of lemmings heading for the cliff edge. Perhaps we should let them both jump and welcome the operators who will expand and thrive as BA disintegrates, because of that disintegration. Pan Am's demise did not kill the US aviation industry and BA's demise won't kill the UK industry.
I am genuinely sorry for those in BA who will eventually lose their jobs, and in particular those who have resisted strike action despite, if stories are true, some disgraceful treatment of those willing but unable to work during the strike because of illness. But this is not a reason to resist root and branch changes designed to turn the airline around and save everyone's job.
© Evrose, 2011
