Battle of Britain

摘要

Winning an award for executive leadership cannot be bad for a flag carrier in this era of airline malaise. When Rod Eddington, chief executive officer of British Airways (BA), picked up his gong for airline leadership, it was largely in response to his oversight of BA's "Future Size and Shape" strategy, which saw the airline achieve an annual profit of ￡135 million, despite the downturn, the low-cost carrier threat and regulatory constraints on the strategic growth of the business. While the strategy has sought to bring cultural change to an airline that was born out of a state-owned entity, as well as review its short-haul pricing mechanisms, one of the other major planks of the strategy was to cut complexity from the business; this applies also to its regional operations, former subsidiaries and fleet.