Alex Cruz replaced as British Airways CEO

IAG, the parent company of British Airways, has just released a statement to the Stock Exchange.

To quote:

“Alex Cruz, British Airways chairman and chief executive, is to step down as chief executive and remain the airline’s non-executive chairman.

Sean Doyle, Aer Lingus chairman and chief executive, will become the new chief executive of British Airways and take over as chairman after a transition period.

Fernando Candela, LEVEL chief executive, is joining the Group’s management committee in a new role of chief transformation officer.

At Aer Lingus, Donal Moriarty, currently the airline’s chief corporate affairs officer, will become interim chief executive. A permanent appointment will be announced in due course.”

To be honest, I thought that Alex might resign after being passed over for the role of IAG Chief Executive. This role went to the head of Iberia, Luis Gallego, even though BA is by far the bigger business. This does not look like a resignation though.

This is what Alex had to say in an email to staff:

Sean Doyle has done a good job at Aer Lingus, although most of the changes on his watch were already in progress when he joined. The airline has made massive strides since IAG bought it. That said …. Covid is potentially showing up the weakness in the strategy, with a huge number of long haul aircraft on order and potentially no customers to fly in them.

Alex hasn’t had an easy ride. The BA IT meltdowns and data breach were not his finest hour. However, people who knew Alex spoke well of him, and he was always very personable and pleasant to me whenever we met. People also tend to ignore his track record, including his role as the founder of Clickair in Spain.

Even those people who saw British Airways as undertaking a ‘race to the bottom’ under his tenure tend to ignore the facts.

Under Cruz we saw the launch of Club Suite – probably the best business class seat of any European airline – plus the First Wing at Heathrow, Club Europe added to domestic routes and the Do&Co catering contract signed. There was also substantial investment in renewing the long haul fleet.

At the other end of the plane, I have recently seen European flights selling for as little as £14 one way. This is a figure which would have been unthinkable when Cruz joined.

With Luis Gallego keen to make his mark at IAG, he will want his own team in place. It seems Alex is not to be part of that.

PS. If you were following @alexcruzmaybe on Twitter, you need to retune to @seandoylemaybe …..

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