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  • Heads Roll at Heathrow

    Willie Walsh takes charge - Kirkwood and Noyes are fired. Problem solved??

    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
    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. :

    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."
    Terry
    Lurking at JP since the BA 777 at Heathrow and AD lost responsiveness to the throttles.
    How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? Sherlock Holmes

  • #2
    So absolutely bloody marvellous, two heads have rolled so everything will be alright now....no no no no no this is not how it is done, these guys had a brief to work to, the problems were not BA's fault but the fault of the BAA who did not hand the building over to BA in a fit state.

    How many landlords do you know that offer a 12 month snagging contract? exactly, BAA were well aware of the belt problems and they were feeding up to 2000 bags an hour to try and correct the problem, so how can this be BA's fault. BA had to move in on that date regardless of whether the building was ready or not and the Queen had to open it 2 weeks before.

    I am not a great defender of BA but in this case I do support them and cast shame on the BAA for not doing something when this problem arose months ago.

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    • #3
      You are right Cargo Runner. It is not BA's fault. We had the same in YYZ with the new T1. The GTAA kept saying is was all up to snuff, but the baggage system didn't work worth a damn. AC delayed entry as long as they could but ended up taking the new terminal and then tried to overcome the shortfalls. Of course everyone blamed AC and not the GTAA.

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