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Wednesday May 21, 2008

Willie Won't He?


So, thumbs up to Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways for snubbing a ten percent bonus of £700,000, to indicate his remorse for the extraordinary fiasco that unrolled at the opening of Terminal 5. It would be foolish to imagine Willie didn’t want the dosh. His canny reasoning for not taking the money was that he’d have been eaten alive by the tabloids if he so much as fingered a penny. He was in a no win situation but when you earn a basic salary of the same amount annually, it can’t be too great a hardship. In fairness to him, British Airways has never performed so well and is showing record profits and its first dividend since 2002, so he deserves a pat on the back. We need a few more Willies in corporate life. He took the flack, admitted to gross incompetence and paid the price while delivering excellent financial results. You can’t do better than that.



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