OK, so Willie Walsh has still enjoyed a total over over £ 1 million remuneration for 2012 and is not therefore facing destitution, but his basic pay has been frozen for a second year running and he isn't getting a bonus.
The reason is covered in our previous item but one can add to Iberia's thumping losses a couple of unfortunate things on the BA side of the balance sheets.
First there is the announcement by Brand Finance this week that the world's most valuable airline brand is now Emirates at $4.2 billion. Lufthansa is second and BA is not in the top ten. What strategic errors over the past twenty or more years and still ongoing have led to that?
Second there is the news that Easyjet has joined the FTSE 100 for the first time. That's not down to Walsh, but his predecessors in BA did give them a bit of help along the line, firstly by selling them the very promising low cost "Go" which could have become the future of BA shorthaul had the company had the courage to go for it and give it the investment it deserved and secondly by letting the orange people have its high quality Iberian peninsular focused franchise GBAir. These two moves saved Easyjet a lot of time and trouble on the way to achieving its present size and network reach. No doubt they are most grateful for the helping hand. A little more help has been given this week by Iberia and BA cancelling many of their flights to Spain due to the second of several Iberia 5 day walkouts. Easyjet have, as at the time of the winter snow disruptions, been the most reliable way to get there. Every little helps as Tesco say.
Interestingly Walsh says in defence of the merger/IAG takeover that one benefit it has had is to reduce the competition Iberia previously provided to BA. Where was that to exactly? Both seemed to do reasonably well on the routes served by both and Iberia was barely on BA's radar screen as a competitor anywhere else other than maybe to South America which has always been of relatively low importance to the British brand. In Europe Easyjet had, with its dynamic but friendly low cost approach become a far greater competitor to BA than lackluster, legacy Iberia ever was and has inevitably taken much of the growth. On long haul routes Emirates and its Gulf companions, Qatar and Etihad have been conspicuously successful and continue to grow by the day, fuelled by geography, investment and some of the best service in the industry. Iberia's significance as a European competitor was therefore small and as a worldwide one almost nil. That was therefore not a very convincing claim. Mr Walsh would have been better off either staying positively silent or just saying that life has been tough and that cutting through Iberia's labyrinth of deeply entrenched inefficiencies is a nightmare which is impeding IAG's forward growth and ability to generate the cash it needs for investment in the future, but that he is the man to do it. Which he probably is.
The reason is covered in our previous item but one can add to Iberia's thumping losses a couple of unfortunate things on the BA side of the balance sheets.
First there is the announcement by Brand Finance this week that the world's most valuable airline brand is now Emirates at $4.2 billion. Lufthansa is second and BA is not in the top ten. What strategic errors over the past twenty or more years and still ongoing have led to that?
Second there is the news that Easyjet has joined the FTSE 100 for the first time. That's not down to Walsh, but his predecessors in BA did give them a bit of help along the line, firstly by selling them the very promising low cost "Go" which could have become the future of BA shorthaul had the company had the courage to go for it and give it the investment it deserved and secondly by letting the orange people have its high quality Iberian peninsular focused franchise GBAir. These two moves saved Easyjet a lot of time and trouble on the way to achieving its present size and network reach. No doubt they are most grateful for the helping hand. A little more help has been given this week by Iberia and BA cancelling many of their flights to Spain due to the second of several Iberia 5 day walkouts. Easyjet have, as at the time of the winter snow disruptions, been the most reliable way to get there. Every little helps as Tesco say.
Interestingly Walsh says in defence of the merger/IAG takeover that one benefit it has had is to reduce the competition Iberia previously provided to BA. Where was that to exactly? Both seemed to do reasonably well on the routes served by both and Iberia was barely on BA's radar screen as a competitor anywhere else other than maybe to South America which has always been of relatively low importance to the British brand. In Europe Easyjet had, with its dynamic but friendly low cost approach become a far greater competitor to BA than lackluster, legacy Iberia ever was and has inevitably taken much of the growth. On long haul routes Emirates and its Gulf companions, Qatar and Etihad have been conspicuously successful and continue to grow by the day, fuelled by geography, investment and some of the best service in the industry. Iberia's significance as a European competitor was therefore small and as a worldwide one almost nil. That was therefore not a very convincing claim. Mr Walsh would have been better off either staying positively silent or just saying that life has been tough and that cutting through Iberia's labyrinth of deeply entrenched inefficiencies is a nightmare which is impeding IAG's forward growth and ability to generate the cash it needs for investment in the future, but that he is the man to do it. Which he probably is.
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