Flying too high
From Mr F.G.B. Smith Sir: With regard to Christopher Fildes's column (City and suburban, 16/23 December) on British Airways' style of manage
ment, may I offer a few observations? I recently retired from BA after 35 years as a pilot.
According to British Airways News (the 'Friday Firelighter'), there are no fewer than 310 conference rooms in BA's palatial new headquarters at Waterside, so holding meetings off-site would seem an unwarrantable extravagance.
There was a further example of extravangance on my last trip — to Bermuda — before retirement. A survey was being carried out on certain aspects of World Traveller (economy) inflight service. This required a team of five — three managers and two cabin crew union reps — to travel Out to Bermuda (Club Class, of course), spend 48 hours in the sun, and fly back. As I recall, the actual survey took about 30 minutes each way.
Criticism of any management policy or decision is not tolerated. The day that Ayling got the push, Captain Trevor Wright flew into Heathrow from Singapore. Amid the general rejoicing, he wrote in the aircraft technical log, 'Please remove graffiti from tailplane and replace with Union Flag; He was arraigned before a disciplinary hearing, and so, after 33 years' unblemished service, three months before retirement, he found himself with a formal reprimand on his personal file.
I fear that Mr Eddington is going to have to do a lot more than 'wander round the office, complaining that he has never seen anything like BA's style of management'.
F.G.B. Smith
South Lane, New Malden
Previous page
