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Fired up by the math, Walsh (a former Aer Lingus pilot who landed the top job there in 2001) quickly got to work cutting the figures down to size. On his first Monday in the BA job, he set about reaching a deal with trade unions to rub out the pension deficit over the next decade through one-off cash injections and changes to employee benefits. Two months later, "Slasher" - as Walsh was known at the Irish carrier for culling a third of its staff while rescuing it from the brink - went to work on BA's head count. Hundreds...
...price-fixing penalties wiped at least some of the gloss off all that. According to the OFT, scheming with rival Virgin over the level of fuel surcharges started months before Walsh took control of BA. As soon as the OFT informed BA in mid-2006 that it was investigating the company, the airline cooperated with the authority's investigations. (Virgin, whose legal team first contacted the OFT about the scheming once it got wind of it, should escape any fine as a result.) Still, it's hardly reassuring that staff at BA thought it a smart idea to collude with...
...Settling the dust-up with the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G) early in the year at least averted the even bigger losses that a cabin crew walkout would have triggered. But the ugly dispute left both parties admitting that "a fresh start is needed to the relationship," BA said in a statement issued at the time. That will take a while. The roots of January's squabble over pay levels were buried in agreements drawn up in the '90s, years before Walsh arrived. He acknowledges: "You don't change the way you do business with long-established trade...
...predecessors kept union negotiations at arm's length, union leaders say, Walsh's direct involvement helped speed up a resolution. With Walsh and his union counterpart sequestered in a London hotel, says Brendan Gold, T&G's national secretary for civil air transport, "serious negotiations were done." Ahead of BA's move next year into the new $8.5 billion Heathrow Terminal 5, the airline persuaded thousands of ground staff to agree to change their practices. So, while an aircraft tug driver used to leave work before the end of his shift if he had completed his list of tasks, staff...
...opening of T5, as the new terminal is known, should also help tackle another of BA's weaknesses: its much-criticized hub. "BA has a fundamental challenge none of its European peers suffer from," says Chris Avery, an airline analyst at JPMorgan in London. "Heathrow is stretched to its limits." Conceived for 45 million passengers a year, it now sees almost 70 million annually endure its crowded terminals and snaking lines. Airlines wait longer for gates to clear, and creaking baggage-handling equipment is prone to breakdowns. Though it can't ease runway congestion - Heathrow's "Achilles heel," says Avery...