Willie Walsh takes charge - Kirkwood and Noyes are fired. Problem solved??
Looks like he listens/listened closely to the concerns of those who work for him. On related news - due to concern about family values we are unable to report on what the emperor is wearing. :
As the bags piled up by their thousands in the basement of Heathrow's Terminal 5 the contrite boss of British Airways, Willie Walsh, stood before the media in the £4.3bn building and accepted personal blame for the shambles.
"I am accepting responsibility. I am not going to start trying to find someone else to point the finger at," he said, before adding: "The buck stops with me."
Yesterday the 46-year-old Dubliner appeared to realise he had made another error and in fact it was two senior colleagues who were responsible for the fiasco. Gareth Kirkwood, director of operations at BA, and David Noyes, head of customer relations, were fired as Walsh took personal charge of running the terminal. Analysts said the move increased the pressure on the chief executive, who has no one else to blame if there are further problems at T5 under his watch.
Both executives were considered rising stars at the airline but a week of chaos at Heathrow's flagship terminal, which saw more than 500 flights cancelled and nearly 30,000 bags separated from their owners, brought their BA careers to an abrupt end. Kirkwood oversaw the move to T5 and his responsibilities included the baggage handling operation that failed so spectacularly on T5's opening day on March 27, forcing Walsh to issue his apology to passengers the next day. More here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...irlineindustry
"I am accepting responsibility. I am not going to start trying to find someone else to point the finger at," he said, before adding: "The buck stops with me."
Yesterday the 46-year-old Dubliner appeared to realise he had made another error and in fact it was two senior colleagues who were responsible for the fiasco. Gareth Kirkwood, director of operations at BA, and David Noyes, head of customer relations, were fired as Walsh took personal charge of running the terminal. Analysts said the move increased the pressure on the chief executive, who has no one else to blame if there are further problems at T5 under his watch.
Both executives were considered rising stars at the airline but a week of chaos at Heathrow's flagship terminal, which saw more than 500 flights cancelled and nearly 30,000 bags separated from their owners, brought their BA careers to an abrupt end. Kirkwood oversaw the move to T5 and his responsibilities included the baggage handling operation that failed so spectacularly on T5's opening day on March 27, forcing Walsh to issue his apology to passengers the next day. More here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...irlineindustry
One union source said: "He is an autocrat and that reflects itself in the way his directors operate. Nobody wanted to go to Willie Walsh and say there were problems. He has said no one had warned him before the launch but that's the nature of the ship he ran."
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