Hi Guys,

Haven’t been on for a while, but had to weigh in on this topic.

What I’m about to say may sound cold, and I don’t mean to offend any airline workers on the forum. Airlines like Alitalia are doomed unless they can get their labour unions under control. Long gone are the days where being paid a lot of money for front line work is justified (perhaps it was never really justified, people just paid higher tickets without knowing any better). AC faced the same thing here in Canada, the unions had to face reality, back down or be reasonable or have no airline at all and forfeit your livelihood.

Exceptional! The quality is fantastic and the shot of the ERJ is remarkable.

Many Jetsgo pilots paid the company $30,000 to be trained with the understanding that the company would pay them back within interest if they stayed for two years.

They were still taking money for bookings up till midnight the night before.

A lot of people are upset.

Great!

You may recall that I’ve started working at BA (Toronto). From my experience thus far, I can’t see any chance on the horizon of BA going the way of EI. It’s business, business, business, business. We just found out the plan for the next two years, there are three main goals:

1. Get the company ready by 2006 for the move to T5 in 08 (two years to work out the kinks).
2. Invest in products and people
3. Bring operating margin to 10% (currently 6%)

I’m sure that Mr. Walsh has some idea of what was on the horizon at BA and made the way clear for himself by leaving EI.

Shamrock: the Gatwick low frills hub is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time. From my understanding in the press, BA do not want LGW to take traffic from BA at LHR, therefore, they will likely consolidate their long-haul efforts at LHR in 08. It will be much more attractive to travellers once they don’t have to jump terminals. Also at LGW BA could take people like Easyjet head on.

I could see them basing a lot of BA Holidays routes out of Manchester. It seems to be a big hub for holiday and charter travellers (from what I see in articles and threads on here).

Great thread, gang.

They could operate Lagos to LHR and free up a mainline aircraft for a more lucrative route.