BA CEO Walsh says combined BA-IB eyes 12 potential takeover targets

Greed,greed and more greed and less choice for the travelling public. May you fail miserably!

The market is moving towards consolidation, and Willie has no option but to move with it or get left behind. AF/KLM, DL, UA/CO and LH have already been there and done that.
Why not have Easyjet & GOL feed into the primary BA and IB hubs/systems?
The Regulators job will be to ensure strong competitive elements remain on all city pairs;ownership should be secondary.

Willie Walsh has demonstrated that he is unable to manage BA's staff ..how can he be expected to manage the new 'super-carrier' any better? Of course he is doing his best to destroy all the unions involved instead of working WITH his staff to modernise fairly, but perhaps he could learn something from Southwest's approach before being allowed to destroy the whole concept of healthy competition? If I was a shareholder of BA I would seek to have him replaced NOW before he creates one of the biggest disasters in commercial aviation history..

Tom,

Get your head up out of the sand and look at the world around you! In this industry, it's now the survival of the fittest and small is no longer beautiful. And how does it offer less choice to the public? It's not as if they will be allowed (or even want) to buy competitors - it sounds like they want to build a proper global brand, not just bits here and there.

Maybe you think BA should still be BEA and BOAC, or even Imperial Airways and BSAA....

Steve,

I -am- a shareholder in BA and my view is that he's a breath of fresh air and the best Chief Exec they've had in many moons for actually trying to sort out inefficiencies that seem to have built up over decades.

I, like many thousands of other shareholders would seriously hate to see him go. Long live Willie!

Steve, I am also a BA shareholder and Willie is only doing what should have been done decades ago. It is only a small element of the staff who are in dispute, and even they can not seem to agree what the dispute is over. Also if I remember correctly most Southwest staff are non unionised. That in itself says something.
Consolidation is inevitable with customers who want to pay less for more and costs such as fuel, landing and nav fees over which all airlines (even Ryanair) have no control, going ever upward
Air travel is not a god given right contrary to what James Oberstar and some of the US Govt seem to think, it is a shrinking market that needs to be chased and attracted.

Like some others have quite rightly stated, Willy Walsh is day dreaming. Under the current environment where individualism is at play in most of the western world, no airline business will thrive irrespective of the merger/consolidation position. Empirical evidence suggests that the concept does not work well in the current environment where airline deregulation and airport privatisation are promoted. You can compare the finacial results of Dubai based Emirates and that of European/ American airlines.

Wow! Very, very ambitous! And even more ambitous to shout it out to the whole world. If only the announcement won't bite him in his own tail...

...because BA is in the dark red almost ever since he took over as CEO
...because he didn't earn any money with EI either
...because the BA-IB merger will still need a lot of managment and financial resources before it will yield any profit
...because there are still lots of political obstacles before an airline outside Europe can be bought a "100%"
...because any airline that could be bought "almost immediately" is most certainly a basket case in desperate need of money (and they will queue at the BA doorstep now)

So actually going down that alley would be like walking into a mine field in broad daylight in my opinion. Look at what happend in the financial sector just a year ago. Or will he choose the politicians path: Create the mess and leave it to somebody else to clean up?

Great idea

The Cabin Crew need to wake up n smell the roses

This is the reality of the airlift industry today. Has anyone seen how big the American airlines have become? [Think Delta, and the 'New United'] then you will see that BA has a lot of catching up to do, even with AF - KLM and the German juggernaut, Lufthansa.

Let me make very clear that BA has a HUGE pension deficit and is not a healthy company. The massive losses BA made in the last 2 years are well over 900 milj GBP! This year BA is on target to break even and maybe even make a profit. Since Walsh has been a CEO as BA it has been a nightmare for BA and their staff. Let me remind you of the T5 opening disaster, bad fuel hegging, ticket price deals with Virgin and the huge fines that followed. Now Mr Walsh runs his company like a bully and is forcing his frontline staff to break their contract or push them out. After the strikes of Unite, Mr Walsh does not care about a solution anymore and he will do exactly the same with you guys, at Iberia, when he is fully instated as CEO of IAG. The International Airline Group which is only interested in Money and Power. Forget when he says that "it will have the best interest in our passengers and staff". Pure GREED, GREED and GREED....see comments above. I fully agree! Get ride of this clown before its far 2 late.