A year ago when the CEO of British Airways parent company IAG publicly blamed Cruz for labor unrest at BA it seemed to me Cruz’s time at the airline would be limited. Then at the start of 2020 when IAG CEO Willie Walsh announced he was leaving many were surprised that Cruz, by virtue of being British Airways CEO, wasn’t the replacement. It seemed almost inevitable at that point that Cruz would be on his way out – but all bets were off with Covid, whic hhas a way of changing everything.
Nonetheless the company announced that Alex Cruz is stepping down as British Airways CEO.
Sean Doyle, the CEO of Aer Lingus, will be the new British Airways CEO – with Aer Lingus’ Chief Corporate Affairs Office Donal Moriarty becoming Aer Lingus interim CEO. Meanwhile the group’s low cost long haul carrier CEO Fernando Candela will become IAG’s “Chief Transformation Officer” (will one of the transformations be the demse of LEVEL?). Cruz will remain non-executive Chairman of British Airways.
Perhaps Cruz’s departure will quell some of the criticism he’s received in the U.K. over how the airline has handled labor relations during the pandemic, threatening to dismiss most employees hiring back a subset at lower wages.
Meanwhile I wonder how Ted Cruz is doing
No tears here for Cruz. Like his predecessor he will waltz off with a HUGE reward for gutting a once proud national airline and turning it into a brand for IAG and lowering everyone’s expectations to O’Leary levels and killing loyal staff morale. Bye bye Alex!
One ratbag bites the dust but plenty more lining up to replace him. Peas in a pod, and merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic