Comment: Rather than criticise his cuts, MPs should praise British Airways' Willie Walsh for saving taxpayers' money

Trying to force a company to employ more staff than it needs is madness

14 day quarantines will add to the airline industry's pain

14 May 2020

For 15 years, British Airways boss Willie Walsh has been restructuring the company to make it financially viable.

It has been an epic task - brutal for staff, tough for management. But he has succeeded, creating, in the International Airlines Group, one of the strongest airline businesses in the world.

Yet that hasn’t stopped MPs telling him how to do his job.

On Monday, he was hauled up in front of the Transport Committee to be grilled on his decision to cut jobs despite using the government's furlough scheme.

Why is this any of their business?

Of course it’s awful for staff, but if the CEO of a private company feels he has to cut costs, that’s up to him.

Anyway, Walsh gave as good as he got and explained airlines are not in for some kind of la-la-land V-shaped recovery.

No short-term furloughing could cover the need to shrink the company for the coming years of low demand.

Other airlines have all followed his lead.

Today, he wrote to the committee

He has to take tough decisions now to make the company sustainable in the long term. If not, more jobs will go.

He could have gone further.

If BA does not scale its payroll back from pre-Covid levels, it would collapse and require a far bigger bailout from the Government.

The industry may need that eventually anyway. But taxpayers’ money should only go to those who’ve set themselves up to operate as profitably as possible.

MPs should praise him for behaving responsibly rather chastise his lack of profligacy.

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Comment: Rather than criticise his cuts, MPs should praise British Airways' Willie Walsh for saving taxpayers' money

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