FL410AV8R wrote: ↑Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:18 am
The decision may have been strategic but the lead up to it and the motivation behind it was as far from pragmatic as it could possibly be. Super charged emotion and bruised egos played a major part.
The analysis and decision on Swoop's format, OC, cost structure, etc was based on input from dozens if not hundreds of people, it was pragmatically arrived at and formed the input for the Exec to "sell" to the rest of the company, the rhetoric during the selling job was certainly egotistical on all sides of the argument after that, but I'm a pragmatic person and know from the teams that provided the input into the decision, that there was a great deal of analysis and soul searching on how to compete with the new ULCC entrants attempting to enter the market.
FL410AV8R wrote: ↑Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:18 am
I, and a significant number of my peers do not trust this executive team. Their track record is mediocre at best and they collectively have destroyed the morale at a company I thought it was impossible to do that at. They have cut to the bone and beyond and incredulously wonder why employee groups are unionizing as fast as they can. Delusional springs to mind.
There is a mutual lack of trust in many areas of the company, which is an unfortunate side effect of company growth. This has been the case for the last 10 years, I believe this happens to most companies when passing through about 5000 employees, as there is another layer of separation added between employees that causes communications problems and distortion. No airline has managed to avoid unionisation of the pilot group when they are employees, when growing to the size WestJet is now. Unionisation has certainly been seen as inevitable at some point from the Durf era onwards. Another issue is that a very large number of employees (perhaps the majority) see the pilot group as entitled and not pulling in the same direction as they are trying to do to make the company successful, as can be seen in some of the Yammer and previous WestNet discussions. Exec changes happen due to lack of meeting targets, and there has been recent turnover, but WestJet has been very consistent in it's growth (by design) and has had reasonable profitability with 52 consecutive quarters in profit (who else in the industry has managed this consistency?), this is down to the current Exec and is a fundamental requirement in gaining the investment grade status that so few airlines have. I would argue that the company morale is as good as at most airlines and other billion dollar plus companies (this is borne out by the WHY survey results that still positions WestJet significantly above other companies, but no longer at the very top), but it feels like everything has gone to crap from the inside, whereas in reality it has just become more normal from an industry perspective. The problem is in how to get back to the top of the top quartile instead of the top of the third quartile.
FL410AV8R wrote: ↑Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:18 am
They have to stop just talking the talk and actually have to walk the walk. A new service introduction without a PR disaster would be a good start, that and owning your mistakes and learning from them as opposed to blaming everyone else for your poor execution. Oh yea and stop being so effing cheap, there is a significant difference between cost conscious and plain old cheap.
I wouldn't say service introductions are major PR disasters across the board (service changes have been introduced without issues, such as Rewards program revamp, MAX introduction, LOPA changes), but there have been too many that have been problematic, in my opinion due to trying to do too many things at the same time. Ed seems to be very aware of this problem and has cancelled or put on hold major initiatives with the aim of gaining control of project delivery.
Plain old cheap is core to the heart of the original WestJet culture, vis in the "good old days" office supplies were never bought, but pens were acquired from staying in hotels, team building events were never on work time but held as social events, aircraft grooming was always done with out grumbling, WestJetters auditioned for roles in ad campaigns and pot-lucks were the norm for team gatherings as opposed to the company catering them. CASM was the edge that WestJet used to have over direct competition, the result of keeping it low through "cheapness" was good profit share cheques and good stock price for a great retirement fund, it is now close to the competition so that edge has been lost. So be it if costs stay the same as everywhere else, people get paid a higher base wage and little from an incentive payment perspective, but the fiscal edge has then been lost and the incentive to push harder is not there any more. You can't have it both ways - "the good old days" and "give me the money now and cost be damned".