[transtraxman]

As a shareholder and occasional user of the IAG airlines I am becoming concerned with the direction the company is taking.

It has now been confirmed that Willie Walsh is stepping down from being CEO of IAG from 26th March this year and then retire completely on 30th June.
My first minor question is what his role will be in those three months and what power of decision will he have? If one leaves then that is that but we do not want godfather figures influencing things in the background.

He accepted the takeover of Air Europa to which I was against initially. However, considering that LATAM had suddenly fallen into the hands of Delta (part of Skyteam) while AF-KLM was organising the integration of Air Europa into a joint venture also in Skyteam, the takeover of Air Europa is not after all a bad idea even if the only consideration is to put a spoiler on AF_KLM plans. That is one last ditch action which has still not been completed. Is that the real reason for WW´s departure a long way before the two years prenotice are up?

Let us look at IAG´s situation at the end of January 2020.
-There has been great movement to try and prove that the company is able to operate in Europe despite having a large number of British and non-EU shareholders.That might well get accepted. But what is it now, a Spanish company?
-BA, Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus seem to achieving their financial objectives, though nobody who I have read speaks well of Iberia nor Vueling and few of BA. On the other hand the group seems stuck in a mold and is not moving. Maybe the takeover of Air Europa will give it a push.
-Worse still nobody speaks of LEVEL. The structure is inexplicable and a mess. It has one head man (who cannot be called COE) but is run by three companies, Iberia, Open Skies and Anisec. It does not get promoted but now news is filtering out. It stops flying Vienna to London and might close down the base altogether, and suddenly announces the cancellation of sales on its routes from Paris to Boston and Las Vegas. The latest rumour is that LEVEL is to be closed down.
-Now the game of musical chairs is falling into place. Willie Walsh is going to be replaced by Luis Gallego as chief executive of IAG, Antonio Vazquez as IAG Chairman, Alex Cruz is COE of BA, while Javier Sanchez-Prieto becomes CEO of Iberia, Marco Sansavini takes over at Vueling. All of these men might well be highly capable and even successful for the company. However, I feel uncomfortable that there is no northern European in the picture, be the person Anglo-Saxon, German or Scandinavian. It is a cuestion of culture for me, with which comes understandings of northern European markets (JUST WHERE IAG IS WEAK)
-Is Finnair going to be snatched from IAG´s grasp? Has IAG given up on Norwegian or is it just a ploy? If not Norwegian would not SAS make a good partner? It looks like the brightest sparks on the horizon are at LOT which has just now doubled in size with its takeover of Condor. These would all make excellent fishing grounds for talent.

Is IAG going to do anything about these perceptions because at the moment it seems to be in a rut.

[capetonianm]

Whilst I am also a shareholder and occasional user of the IAG airlines I am not concerned with the direction the company is taking, although I can understand why others are.

As soon as the Spanish became involved, I expected to see it go from bad to worse, and my expectations were amply fulfilled. I now fly on IAG airlines so rarely (except Aer Lingus which has maintained its excellence) that I don’t care. I would avoid IB and VY except under the very direst of circumstances, and I now only fly BA, usually in C, when it’s a rock bottom fare or on Avios, and then I expect it to be miserable and it is usually not that bad.

My IAG shares are a tiny component of a large portfolio, and one which the fund managers manage so well that in the event that they felt the shares were no longer viable, they would sell. In the last 3 years, the shares have fluctuated between 413 and 671 and currently sit at 561, having dropped sharply in the last 2 weeks. Overall it’s not been a bad performance.

As teenagers would say : “Wotever!” It’s just not important enough to me, although I could divest my portfolio of AIG shares as a matter of principle, as I did years ago with tobacco and other unethical shares.

[ViajeroUK]

Had an interesting conversation with a guy from Air Europa last week, managerial not flight crew, about the pending IAG situation. Most of my travel is with SkyTeam, which occasionally includes connecting flights with Air Europa.

His view was that the Spanish anti-competition people would not look favourably at the prospect of Spain’s three largest scheduled airlines all being under the same ownership, he thought that any ‘deal’ was a long way fromcompletion and there would be many hurdles en route.

It may that IAG would like to make use of the South American routes that Air Europa operate, or, tongue in cheek, are IAG just wanting to cause a bit of annoyance to SkyTeam?

[SimonS1]

I think WW has done a decent job for shareholders by acquiring airlines and taking out costs. Whether the new CEO can follow that remains to be seen, as competition authorities will begin to look increasingly closely at further consolidation.

Beyond that I would say there are limited opportunities for cost savings, the proposition is thin enough now. Perhaps some tweaking of classes to deliver optimum configuration.

From a passenger perspective I avoid BA whenever I can I’m afraid. On its better days it’s a really ordinary airline.

[nevereconomy]

A conundrum of an airline. One we all love to hate. It makes money in a very competitive market, fills lots of premium seats despite all our whineing, obviously some supporters out there. Competitive pricing, at least from my experience – I guess with the new seats, food they will keep on keeping on with the new person at the helm. Personally I hope so – they have moved me safely many 100,000’s of miles with very few glitches – not always perfect,but no-one is.

3 users thanked author for this post.

rferguson, AFlyingDutchman, ImissConcorde

[capetonianm]

Two British Airways executives step down following the airline’s first strike in decades

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/british-airways-coo-people-director-leave-september-pilot-walkout-executives-2020-2-1028908766

Unfortunately Cruz isn’t one of them.

[Author]

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