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Accelerating Change At British Airways
Nov 16, 2015
Jens Flottau | Aviation Week & Space Technology
That legacy and low-cost airlines can learn a lot from each other is almost taken for granted at International Airlines Group (IAG). At IAG executive committee meetings, Vueling CEO Alex Cruz is known to have spoken up regularly when he thought his colleague, British Airways CEO Keith Williams, was not radical enough in implementing measures that would make the sister carrier more efficient.
What Cruz did not know at the time was that he would soon be running BA himself. “We only told him afterward that it was up to him now to reach the targets,” IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh remarks. That means an annual operating profit margin of 12-15% over the next five years. But Cruz accepted the new job nonetheless and will succeed Williams when the BA veteran retires in April 2016.
While an increasing number of major legacy carriers worldwide are trying to take advantage of low-cost know-how by hiring executives from low-cost carriers (LCC) for middle or senior management positions, British Airways will be the first to actually be run by a CEO who has grown up in the industry by leading a low-cost airline.
British Airways is renewing its long-haul fleet using Boeing 787s among other types. Credit: British Airways
Nov 16, 2015
Jens Flottau | Aviation Week & Space Technology
That legacy and low-cost airlines can learn a lot from each other is almost taken for granted at International Airlines Group (IAG). At IAG executive committee meetings, Vueling CEO Alex Cruz is known to have spoken up regularly when he thought his colleague, British Airways CEO Keith Williams, was not radical enough in implementing measures that would make the sister carrier more efficient.
What Cruz did not know at the time was that he would soon be running BA himself. “We only told him afterward that it was up to him now to reach the targets,” IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh remarks. That means an annual operating profit margin of 12-15% over the next five years. But Cruz accepted the new job nonetheless and will succeed Williams when the BA veteran retires in April 2016.
While an increasing number of major legacy carriers worldwide are trying to take advantage of low-cost know-how by hiring executives from low-cost carriers (LCC) for middle or senior management positions, British Airways will be the first to actually be run by a CEO who has grown up in the industry by leading a low-cost airline.
British Airways is renewing its long-haul fleet using Boeing 787s among other types. Credit: British Airways
