THE HUBRIS OF BRITISH AIRWAYS
On a blog entry posted November 15, 2007, I discussed a story about British Airways flying empty airliners on trans-Atlantic routes. My words then were:
“BA thinks that from its high position in the airline industry it can get away with practically any kind of behavior. This conclusion is not based only on the empty flights episode. A few months ago BA was fined with hundreds of million of dollars by both the British and the American authorities because of antitrust activities – fixing flight fares with other airlines. That episode, too, have shown a kind of corporate policy that basically says: we are above all the others; the rules do not apply to us; we can do as we wish because we are the famous, rich and successful British Airways.”
Less than six months later we all can see the grim consequences of BA’s hubris. Last Thursday (March 27) was the first operating day of London Heathrow’s new terminal 5, a state of the art terminal dedicated to BA, the biggest airline in this airport. The festive day turned in no time to be a disastrous one, when practically most of the systems in the facility broke. BA had to cancel dozens of flights at its most important hub in the world, while thousands of lost luggages piled up in the terminal, apart from their owners. While this entry is being posted, the chaos at Heathrow is still going on.
The mere notion that in the year 2008, in a country such as the U.K., in an airline such as BA, in an airport such as LHR, the take off of a new facility, after years of building and testing, could get so faulty is quite astonishing. But that is exactly what happened. And the main reason, in my opinion, is the hubris and arrogance of BA, the same as I described it in November.
BA’s attitude is bad not just because of its self conception as “the best”, but because they basically think: even if we screw things up, we’ll manage to escape the outcome. The sad truth is, they’re right.
Tags: British Airways, Hethrow, LHR
