Willie Walsh quits as IAG CEO and BA CEO Alex Cruz is passed over for the job

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• Mark says:

  9 Jan9 January 13:22

  I thought the onboard food in IB business class was OK; more to our taste than some of what BA offers in CW. That’s inevitably a subjective judgement though…

  • Andy says:

    9 Jan9 January 17:14

    Breakfast on IB in long haul business is poor, while their longest flights (Tokyo & Shanghai, for example) have very stingy portions of food.

• ADS says:

  9 Jan9 January 15:17

  MH always seem to be looking for a new CEO … maybe Cruz will be the next lamb to the slaughter ?!

• ChrisA says:

  9 Jan9 January 17:22

  In February 2019 I got on an early morning Iberia J flight from MAD to LHR, having travelled from BOS to MAD a few hours earlier on the excellent value Iberia J flight.
  The MAD to LHR flight was held up for a few mins whilst waiting for the final passenger, who sat next to me. A passenger behind me was expressed his frustration about having to wait for this gentleman, and told the cabin crew he would write a letter of complaint to Iberia. The member of cabin crew said something very much the lines of ‘oh, you could just complain directly to the late guy yourself if you want’. Turns out the chap next to me was the chairman of IAG. I hurriedly put on my eye mask and ear plugs.

  • Riccatti says:

    9 Jan9 January 18:33

    Iberia likes that thing.

    Holding the boarded plane for an important passenger, arranging for private boarding from private buses while the whole of jet bridge is full of waiting passengers…

    That distinctly separates into first and second-class citizens.

• Rooster says:

  9 Jan9 January 18:34

  What exactly do you not like about Disqus apart from that you heard from some people that most sites ditch it?

  • John says:

    10 Jan10 January 08:49

    It’s crap and requires me to unblock all sorts of things just to work (I allow some HFP ads)

    • Rob says:

      10 Jan10 January 09:34

      And, slightly more importantly, the comments no longer sit in HFP. If we drop Disqus, we lose all the comments.

      Site speed is also a massive issue these days, with Google improving your ranking the quicker you are. Disqus requires data to be pulled from their servers each time a page is refreshed. Not clever.

• Henry Montrose says:

  9 Jan9 January 19:56

  Maybe, when you finally get rid of that Pratt walsh… BA, maybe might recover the style they had… what a total bollocks up he made, the most popular to the worlds worst, and now let’s overpay for sandwiches … lets crash our IT, let our pilots strike, lets have seriously old planes IAG will smile at the end of March.. pity anyone else who gets him..

• C77 says:

  9 Jan9 January 22:34

  Interesting read. IAG is essentially Spanish so having a Madrid based CEO makes sense to me.
  With much work to be done with the UX takeover and the future plan for all the Spanish IAG brands, it seems a wise choice. BA and EI are well placed to look after themselves. Alex would have fudged it anyway, he’s just a puppet at the end of the day for whoever pulls the strings.

  • C77 says:

    9 Jan9 January 22:51

    Seems the new guy has done the rounds and has a good grounding in the low cost markets. That’s where the competition is the most fierce. Maybe he’s the man to guide these businesses and brands and make decision over their futures. LEVEL, IB Express, Vueling and soon Air Europa. Needs sorting out to 1 or 2 recognisable and well regarded brands.

    • Andy says:

      9 Jan9 January 23:40

      No love lost if the Vueling brand disappears in that scenario

      • C77 says:

        11 Jan11 January 01:47

        Agree. While VG is widely recognised I suspect it’s for all the wrong reasons

• MarkH says:

  10 Jan10 January 00:57

  OT but Iberia

  I have a GIG-MAD flight booked in business and will be connecting to MAD-LHR in economy (different PNR so will have to collect bags and check them back in). Both flights arrive/leave from T4S.

  Will I have access to the Velasquez lounge as I’m arriving in J even though separate ticket? If so, are the rest pods bookable or is it a case of seeing whether any are available?

  If not, I assume I could kill time in the arrivals lounge and then go through security shortly before the flight.

  • David says:

    10 Jan10 January 01:38

    I would imagine you’d want to collect your bags which will be on the carousel on the main terminal soon after your GIG flight arrives. You would be entitled to use the lounge in T4 or T4S as an arriving J passenger even though on a separate Y ticket (depending of where your LHR flight departs from) Just show the BP of your incoming GIG flight. For me the main merit of the IB lounges is the Strawberry & Cream Haagen Dazs tubs that they only bring out during meal times.

    • MarkH says:

      10 Jan10 January 03:02

      Thanks David – much appreciated.
      LHR flight is leaving from T4S so seems like I’ll have to head to the main terminal to collect bags then go back to the satellite terminal after checking them back in.

      Will definitely keep an eye out for the Haagen Dasz!

  • David says:

    10 Jan10 January 01:40

    Pods are not bookable afaik

• Jimbo says:

  10 Jan10 January 19:13

  I am so pleased he’s gone. As a travel agent he has constantly messed with us and made things more difficult for the major sales channel which is us agents. Maybe the replacement can heal what damage Willie did.

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